Pak Xeng fire, April 2024 Pak Xeng
The fire started on 15 April 2024 in Pak Xeng, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,305 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 218th largest in Luang Prabang since 2016 (of 293 with a page). Number 84 in Laos in 2024, of 109.
- Burnt area
- 2,305ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 10days
- 15 Apr 2024 – 24 Apr 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 15 Apr
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 62
- in a single hotspot: 246 MW
- Energy released
- 2.5GW
- 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.
This area had burned before
89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 145 ha in 2016, 1,134 ha in 2019, 526 ha in 2020, 505 ha in 2021, 24 ha in 2022, 1,863 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,049 ha that had burned before.
- 1,142 ha Ngoi fire, March 2023 15,019 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,134 ha Pak Xeng fire, April 2019 4,864 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 251 ha Pak Xeng fire, April 2021 2,676 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 23 ha Pak Xeng fire, April 2023 19,543 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Pak Xeng where it started2,319 ha reached on 15 Apr1.4 %
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.
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 16 April 2024 the air beside the fire reached 139 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 74: 4.9 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 · 62Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 15,019 haNgoi25 March 2023 · 32 days · 11 km away
- 35,409 haPark Ou9 March 2020 · 29 days · 21 km away
- 56,191 haPark Ou22 March 2026 · 32 days · 25 km away
- 19,543 haPak Xeng3 April 2023 · 27 days · 27 km away
- 14,236 haPark Ou26 March 2024 · 21 days · 27 km away
- 30,865 haPak XengMarch 2023 · 26 days · 28 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Pak Xeng fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 15 April 2024 to 24 April 2024 (10 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 April 2024 to 24 April 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,305 hectares (23.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Pak Xeng (2,319 ha, 1.4 %).
- 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.