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Ngeun fire, 10 March 2019 Ngeun

Out · last detection 11 Apr 2019, 18:53 UTC

The fire started on 10 March 2019 in Ngeun, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 33 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,183 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 17th largest in Xaignabouli since 2016 (of 161 with a page). Number 5 in Laos in 2019, of 126.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ngeun · 2018Ngeun · 2023Hoon · 2023Hoon · 2020

Burnt area
9,183ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
33days
10 Mar 2019 – 11 Apr 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
10 Mar
2019
Heat detections
458
in a single hotspot: 226 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Average daily power
303MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Mar11 Apr
11 Apr 2019

How it evolved, day by day

10 Mar 2019 · 19 MW · 4 11 Mar 2019 · 4 MW · 2 12 Mar 2019 · 10 MW · 2 14 Mar 2019 · 164 MW · 6 15 Mar 2019 · 20 MW · 5 16 Mar 2019 · 12 MW · 2 17 Mar 2019 · 3 MW · 1 18 Mar 2019 · 362 MW · 15 19 Mar 2019 · 2 MW · 1 20 Mar 2019 · 110 MW · 16 21 Mar 2019 · 1,392 MW · 37 22 Mar 2019 · 856 MW · 39 23 Mar 2019 · 1,439 MW · 34 24 Mar 2019 · 1,023 MW · 22 25 Mar 2019 · 1,003 MW · 36 26 Mar 2019 · 582 MW · 36 27 Mar 2019 · 714 MW · 28 28 Mar 2019 · 23 MW · 3 29 Mar 2019 · 191 MW · 31 30 Mar 2019 · 314 MW · 15 31 Mar 2019 · 487 MW · 47 1 Apr 2019 · 241 MW · 19 2 Apr 2019 · 286 MW · 18 3 Apr 2019 · 168 MW · 7 4 Apr 2019 · 118 MW · 8 5 Apr 2019 · 50 MW · 7 6 Apr 2019 · 4 MW · 1 7 Apr 2019 · 11 MW · 2 8 Apr 2019 · 36 MW · 4 9 Apr 2019 · 16 MW · 3 10 Apr 2019 · 8 MW · 1 11 Apr 2019 · 17 MW · 6
10 Mar 16 Mar 21 Mar 23 Mar 26 Mar 31 Mar 5 Apr 10 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
46km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

23% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,423 ha in 2016, 606 ha in 2017, 259 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,072 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 5.8% of the area of London (92 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. Ngeun where it started
    9,233 ha
    13 %

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 2020
Built-up area1.4 ha
Residents≈ 750

Inside the perimeter there were about 1.4 hectares of built-up land and about 750 residents (GHSL 2020, 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.

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)
10 Mar 34.0 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Mar 35.4 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Mar 35.4 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
13 Mar 35.3 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Mar 36.0 °C 30 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
15 Mar 35.1 °C 33 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
16 Mar 35.4 °C 39 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
17 Mar 35.9 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
18 Mar 35.4 °C 38 % 33 km/h 1.0 mm High 22
19 Mar 34.0 °C 44 % 43 km/h 1.6 mm Moderate 14
20 Mar 36.6 °C 28 % 46 km/h 0.4 mm High 32
21 Mar 36.7 °C 27 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
22 Mar 36.4 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Mar 38.0 °C 21 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
24 Mar 34.3 °C 42 % 45 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
25 Mar 35.9 °C 45 % 33 km/h 0.5 mm High 27
26 Mar 35.8 °C 43 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
27 Mar 35.4 °C 43 % 35 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 18
28 Mar 35.4 °C 34 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
29 Mar 36.1 °C 26 % 35 km/h 2.0 mm High 23
30 Mar 36.4 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
31 Mar 37.4 °C 33 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
1 Apr 36.6 °C 32 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
2 Apr 35.2 °C 40 % 35 km/h 0.3 mm High 29
3 Apr 35.4 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
4 Apr 36.2 °C 37 % 28 km/h 1.4 mm Moderate 19
5 Apr 35.2 °C 40 % 34 km/h 0.3 mm High 24
6 Apr 35.9 °C 40 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
7 Apr 36.8 °C 37 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
8 Apr 38.3 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
9 Apr 38.4 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Apr 38.5 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Apr 38.8 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
12 Apr after 38.9 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
13 Apr after 39.2 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Apr after 39.6 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
15 Apr after 40.3 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Apr after 39.4 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
17 Apr after 39.2 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Apr after 39.4 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Apr after 40.2 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Apr after 40.4 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
21 Apr after 39.1 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Mar 2019
After · 18 Apr 2019

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 458Every 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 Ngeun fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 10 March 2019 to 11 April 2019 (33 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 March 2019 to 4 April 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 9,183 hectares (91.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ngeun (9,233 ha, 13 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.8 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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.

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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 16 March 2019 to 4 April 2019. 458 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 2020, 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.