Mad fire, 27 March 2026 Mad
The fire started on 27 March 2026 in Mad, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 29 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,959 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 13th largest in Vientiane since 2016 (of 74 with a page). Number 57 in Laos in 2026, of 287.
- Burnt area
- 6,959ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 29days
- 27 Mar 2026 – 24 Apr 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 27 Mar
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 449
- in a single hotspot: 308 MW
- Danger at start
- 29
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 8.8GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 12.2 mm on 26 Apr.
This area had burned before
83% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,791 ha in 2016, 1,181 ha in 2017, 278 ha in 2018, 598 ha in 2019, 1,719 ha in 2020, 299 ha in 2022, 802 ha in 2023, 4,295 ha in 2024, 488 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,745 ha that had burned before.
- 1,590 ha Mad fire, March 2024 2,444 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 873 ha Mad fire, April 2017 7,925 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 367 ha Mad fire, April 2019 4,465 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 331 ha Mad fire, March 2020 4,141 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 299 ha Mad fire, April 2022 2,052 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 278 ha Mad fire, April 2018 5,771 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 130 ha Mad fire, April 2019 4,206 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 78 ha Mad fire, March 2023 2,501 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Mad where it started6,992 ha reached on 27 Mar4.5 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
The weather day by day
ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 Mar | 37.1 °C | 27 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 28 Mar | 36.0 °C | 31 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 29 Mar | 34.8 °C | 34 % | 38 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 30 |
| 30 Mar | 37.0 °C | 23 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 31 Mar | 36.3 °C | 27 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 1 Apr | 36.8 °C | 30 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 2 Apr | 36.6 °C | 31 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 3 Apr | 36.9 °C | 29 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 4 Apr | 35.5 °C | 33 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 5 Apr | 36.6 °C | 32 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 6 Apr | 37.5 °C | 27 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 7 Apr | 37.5 °C | 27 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 8 Apr | 38.1 °C | 21 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 9 Apr | 37.9 °C | 20 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 10 Apr | 38.0 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 11 Apr | 37.1 °C | 25 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 12 Apr | 37.7 °C | 22 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 13 Apr | 38.1 °C | 25 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 14 Apr | 38.6 °C | 23 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 15 Apr | 38.7 °C | 21 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 16 Apr | 39.1 °C | 16 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 17 Apr | 38.4 °C | 22 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 18 Apr | 35.7 °C | 35 % | 25 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 34 |
| 19 Apr | 32.9 °C | 51 % | 32 km/h | 6.6 mm | Low 5 |
| 20 Apr | 33.9 °C | 41 % | 25 km/h | 0.6 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 21 Apr | 35.6 °C | 35 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 22 Apr | 36.5 °C | 40 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 23 Apr | 34.1 °C | 49 % | 27 km/h | 1.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 24 Apr | 30.3 °C | 65 % | 34 km/h | 4.5 mm | Very low 3 |
| 25 Apr after | 30.1 °C | 58 % | 25 km/h | 0.6 mm | Low 6 |
| 26 Apr after | 27.4 °C | 73 % | 31 km/h | 12.2 mm | Very low 0 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 12 April 2026 the air beside the fire reached 393 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 270: 18 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 449Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mad fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 March 2026 to 24 April 2026 (29 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 April 2026 to 19 April 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,959 hectares (69.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Mad (6,992 ha, 4.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.1 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, class Very high.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Laos (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.
Where to verify it
A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.
Satellite cross-check
Does something look wrong on this page?
This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.
Report an error
Where this data comes from
The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.