Skip to content
worldfires
en
LA · Laos · →

Meung fire, 31 March 2026 Meung

Out · last detection 17 Apr 2026, 07:16 UTC

The fire started on 31 March 2026 in Meung, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,869 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 46th largest in Bokeo since 2016 (of 73 with a page). Number 177 in Laos in 2026, of 308.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Meung · 2020Meung · 2023Tonpheung · 2020Meung · 2020

Burnt area
2,869ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
18days
31 Mar 2026 – 17 Apr 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
31 Mar
2026
Heat detections
60
in a single hotspot: 258 MW
Danger at start
19
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
197MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Mar17 Apr
17 Apr 2026

How it evolved, day by day

31 Mar 2026 · 8 MW · 2 2 Apr 2026 · 73 MW · 3 3 Apr 2026 · 298 MW · 8 4 Apr 2026 · 483 MW · 5 5 Apr 2026 · 3 MW · 1 6 Apr 2026 · 58 MW · 7 7 Apr 2026 · 1,014 MW · 10 9 Apr 2026 · 412 MW · 3 10 Apr 2026 · 16 MW · 2 11 Apr 2026 · 71 MW · 6 13 Apr 2026 · 10 MW · 2 14 Apr 2026 · 141 MW · 5 15 Apr 2026 · 165 MW · 5 17 Apr 2026 · 2 MW · 1
31 Mar 3 Apr 5 Apr 7 Apr 10 Apr 13 Apr 15 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

37°high
42km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.3 mm on 25 Apr.

This area had burned before

75% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 425 ha in 2017, 7 ha in 2019, 1,055 ha in 2020, 1,161 ha in 2021, 1,876 ha in 2023, 187 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,153 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.8% of the area of London (29 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

  1. Meung where it started
    2,885 ha
    1.8 %

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 area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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)
31 Mar 34.5 °C 37 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
1 Apr 33.7 °C 39 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
2 Apr 35.2 °C 35 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
3 Apr 36.8 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
4 Apr 36.2 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
5 Apr 36.3 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
6 Apr 36.6 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
7 Apr 35.5 °C 39 % 37 km/h 2.4 mm Moderate 12
8 Apr 35.0 °C 38 % 40 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 20
9 Apr 33.0 °C 44 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 19
10 Apr 33.6 °C 37 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
11 Apr 35.1 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
12 Apr 35.3 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
13 Apr 36.4 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
14 Apr 36.8 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
15 Apr 36.4 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
16 Apr 35.5 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.3 mm High 29
17 Apr 37.1 °C 27 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
18 Apr after 35.1 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
19 Apr after 35.2 °C 40 % 36 km/h 0.5 mm High 28
20 Apr after 33.3 °C 41 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
21 Apr after 35.6 °C 39 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
22 Apr after 37.0 °C 33 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
23 Apr after 33.1 °C 41 % 34 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 21
24 Apr after 36.3 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm High 25
25 Apr after 30.7 °C 62 % 35 km/h 5.3 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Mar 2026
After · 24 Apr 2026

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 207 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 140: 9.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak207 µg/m³
Days over the guideline23 days
PM10236 µg/m³
Optical depth2.06
2930311234567891011121314151617181920
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 · 60Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Laos ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Meung fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 31 March 2026 to 17 April 2026 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 April 2026 to 11 April 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,869 hectares (28.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Meung (2,885 ha, 1.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, class 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

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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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 1 April 2026 to 11 April 2026. 60 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.