Namor fire, 18 April 2024 Namor
The fire started on 18 April 2024 in Namor, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,162 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 116th largest in Oudomxay since 2016 (of 241 with a page). Number 41 in Laos in 2024, of 109.
- Burnt area
- 3,162ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 17days
- 18 Apr 2024 – 4 May 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 18 Apr
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 135
- in a single hotspot: 271 MW
- Danger at start
- 32
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 2.7GW
- 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 26 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 7 May.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,129 ha in 2016, 1,870 ha in 2017, 2,433 ha in 2018, 2,131 ha in 2019, 2,020 ha in 2020, 1,475 ha in 2021, 1,819 ha in 2022, 2,306 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,178 ha that had burned before.
- 2,306 ha Xay fire, March 2023 60,413 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,131 ha Namor fire, March 2019 23,964 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,822 ha Namor fire, April 2017 29,869 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,497 ha Xay fire, April 2018 31,315 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,316 ha Namor fire, April 2020 3,468 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,087 ha Namor fire, April 2021 5,144 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 936 ha Namor fire, April 2018 4,686 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 663 ha Xay fire, April 2016 23,891 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Namor where it started3,175 ha reached on 18 Apr1.8 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 Apr | 33.3 °C | 40 % | 40 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 32 |
| 19 Apr | 34.8 °C | 37 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 20 Apr | 33.8 °C | 42 % | 45 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 34 |
| 21 Apr | 35.6 °C | 31 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 22 Apr | 37.2 °C | 27 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 23 Apr | 37.6 °C | 31 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 24 Apr | 35.7 °C | 40 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 25 Apr | 35.0 °C | 37 % | 40 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 35 |
| 26 Apr | 34.4 °C | 36 % | 43 km/h | 0.9 mm | High 30 |
| 27 Apr | 36.8 °C | 26 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 28 Apr | 38.0 °C | 27 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 29 Apr | 37.5 °C | 27 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 30 Apr | 36.9 °C | 33 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 1 May | 38.2 °C | 25 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 2 May | 36.3 °C | 38 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 3 May | 34.2 °C | 41 % | 38 km/h | 1.1 mm | High 24 |
| 4 May | 36.0 °C | 25 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 5 May after | 35.0 °C | 41 % | 32 km/h | 0.7 mm | High 26 |
| 6 May after | 34.0 °C | 46 % | 34 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 25 |
| 7 May after | 29.7 °C | 56 % | 31 km/h | 1.2 mm | Moderate 12 |
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 1 May 2024 the air beside the fire reached 175 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 87: 5.8 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 · 135Every 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 Namor fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 18 April 2024 to 4 May 2024 (17 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 April 2024 to 30 April 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,162 hectares (31.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Namor (3,175 ha, 1.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.2 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.