How long did the Meun fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 March 2026 to 22 April 2026 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 April 2026 to 19 April 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,492 hectares (54.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Meun (4,196 ha, 3.9 %); Xanakharm (1,098 ha, 0.6 %); Mad (232 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.7 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.

LA · Laos · 2026-03-30 → 2026-04-22

Meun fire, March 2026 Meun, Xanakharm, Mad

Out · last detection 22 Apr 2026, 18:12 UTC

The fire started on 30 March 2026 in Meun, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,492 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 20th largest in Vientiane since 2016 (of 87 with a page). Number 85 in Laos in 2026, of 308.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Meun · 2016 Mad · 2025 Xanakharm · 2026 Parklai · 2023

Burnt area: 5,492ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 24days; 30 Mar 2026 – 22 Apr 2026
Municipalities hit: 3; districts
Started on: 30 Mar; 2026
Heat detections: 172; in a single hotspot: 86 MW
Danger at start: 33; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 75MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Mar22 Apr

Play back 22 Apr 2026

How it evolved, day by day

30 Mar 3 Apr 8 Apr 11 Apr 14 Apr 17 Apr 20 Apr

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

39°high

39km/h · peak gust

17%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 23 Apr.

This area had burned before

54% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,122 ha in 2016, 489 ha in 2017, 610 ha in 2018, 15 ha in 2019, 32 ha in 2020, 15 ha in 2022, 1,717 ha in 2023, 1,324 ha in 2024, 1,030 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,968 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 3.5% of the area of London (55 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Meun where it started

4,196 ha

3.9 %
Xanakharm

1,098 ha

0.6 %
Mad

232 ha

0.2 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025

Built-up area0.52 ha

Residents≈ 100

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.52 hectares of built-up land and about 100 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
30 Mar	36.4 °C	24 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
31 Mar	36.1 °C	26 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
1 Apr	36.4 °C	29 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
2 Apr	36.4 °C	29 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
3 Apr	36.7 °C	28 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
4 Apr	35.7 °C	31 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
5 Apr	36.4 °C	30 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
6 Apr	37.4 °C	26 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
7 Apr	37.4 °C	26 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
8 Apr	37.7 °C	21 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
9 Apr	37.5 °C	20 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
10 Apr	37.8 °C	17 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
11 Apr	36.9 °C	24 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
12 Apr	37.4 °C	21 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
13 Apr	37.6 °C	25 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
14 Apr	38.3 °C	23 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
15 Apr	38.5 °C	21 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
16 Apr	38.7 °C	17 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
17 Apr	38.0 °C	22 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
18 Apr	35.5 °C	36 %	24 km/h	0.1 mm	High 33
19 Apr	33.6 °C	46 %	31 km/h	6.3 mm	Low 6
20 Apr	33.9 °C	39 %	24 km/h	0.4 mm	Moderate 19
21 Apr	34.9 °C	37 %	24 km/h	0.1 mm	High 24
22 Apr	36.0 °C	40 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
23 Apr after	33.9 °C	45 %	25 km/h	1.0 mm	Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

↔

Before · 23 Mar 2026

After · 29 Apr 2026

Before After

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 · Copernicus

On 17 April 2026 the air beside the fire reached 294 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 182: 12 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak294 µg/m³

Days over the guideline29 days

PM10310 µg/m³

Optical depth2.78

WHO 15

2829303112345678910111213141516171819202122232425

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 172Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.

⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.

Date and time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Laos ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Meun fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 March 2026 to 22 April 2026 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 April 2026 to 19 April 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,492 hectares (54.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Meun (4,196 ha, 3.9 %); Xanakharm (1,098 ha, 0.6 %); Mad (232 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.7 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

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How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 5 April 2026 to 19 April 2026. 172 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.

Where it burned