Pakbeng fire, 29 March 2021 Pakbeng
The fire started on 29 March 2021 in Pakbeng, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,186 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 202th largest in Oudomxay since 2016 (of 241 with a page). Number 67 in Laos in 2021, of 86.
- Burnt area
- 2,186ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 29 Mar 2021 – 2 Apr 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 29 Mar
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 77
- in a single hotspot: 783 MW
- Energy released
- 4.5GW
- 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
75% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,117 ha in 2016, 1,160 ha in 2017, 441 ha in 2019, 3 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,650 ha that had burned before.
- 1,160 ha Pakbeng fire, April 2017 3,537 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 417 ha Pha Oudom fire, March 2019 11,424 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 283 ha Pha Oudom fire, April 2016 5,164 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 24 ha Pakbeng fire, March 2019 3,522 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3 ha Pakbeng fire, March 2020 2,001 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Pakbeng where it started2,199 ha reached on 31 Mar1.7 %
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.
Detections table · 77Every 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 Pakbeng fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 March 2021 and 2 April 2021: 5 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,186 hectares (21.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Pakbeng (2,199 ha, 1.7 %).
- 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.