Nga fire, 31 March 2026 Nga
The fire started on 31 March 2026 in Nga, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,847 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 89th largest in Oudomxay since 2016 (of 239 with a page). Number 122 in Laos in 2026, of 308.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Nga · 2023Nga · 2018Nga · 2020Nga · 2018
- Burnt area
- 3,847ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 20days
- 31 Mar 2026 – 19 Apr 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 31 Mar
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 107
- in a single hotspot: 127 MW
- Danger at start
- 14
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 54MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.9 mm on 20 Apr.
This area had burned before
83% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 318 ha in 2017, 436 ha in 2018, 1,245 ha in 2020, 282 ha in 2021, 2,919 ha in 2023, 751 ha in 2024, 65 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,206 ha that had burned before.
- 2,919 ha Nga fire, March 2023 9,617 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 436 ha Nga fire, April 2018 3,146 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 266 ha Nga fire, March 2020 5,831 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Nga where it started3,868 ha reached on 31 Mar2.0 %
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.
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 | 31.0 °C | 38 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 1 Apr | 30.6 °C | 43 % | 30 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 2 Apr | 30.7 °C | 44 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 3 Apr | 32.6 °C | 36 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 4 Apr | 32.2 °C | 37 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 5 Apr | 31.4 °C | 41 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 6 Apr | 31.7 °C | 42 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 7 Apr | 32.4 °C | 40 % | 38 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 8 Apr | 32.6 °C | 38 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 9 Apr | 32.1 °C | 34 % | 45 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 10 Apr | 31.8 °C | 32 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 11 Apr | 31.7 °C | 35 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 12 Apr | 32.5 °C | 26 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 13 Apr | 33.4 °C | 32 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 14 Apr | 32.4 °C | 37 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 15 Apr | 32.4 °C | 38 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 16 Apr | 33.5 °C | 29 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 17 Apr | 33.2 °C | 35 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 18 Apr | 29.6 °C | 49 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 19 Apr | 27.7 °C | 68 % | 38 km/h | 9.8 mm | Very low 1 |
| 20 Apr after | 28.8 °C | 56 % | 42 km/h | 2.9 mm | Very low 2 |
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 18 April 2026 the air beside the fire reached 247 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 169: 11 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 · 107Every 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 Nga fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 31 March 2026 to 19 April 2026 (20 days). The perimeter dates it from 7 April 2026 to 19 April 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,847 hectares (38.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Nga (3,868 ha, 2.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, 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.
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
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 7 April 2026 to 19 April 2026. 107 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.
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.