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Pakkading fire, March 2023 Pakkading, Bolikhanh

Out · last measured on 2 Apr 2023

The fire started on 22 March 2023 in Pakkading, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,259 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 36th largest in Bolikhamsai since 2016 (of 50 with a page). Number 189 in Laos in 2023, of 239.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Bolikhanh · 2026Bung Khla · 2019Bolikhanh · 2026Bolikhanh · 2026

We have the GWIS perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
2,259ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
22 Mar 2023 – 2 Apr 2023
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
22 Mar
2023

Where it burned

This area had burned before

74% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 133 ha in 2016, 211 ha in 2017, 139 ha in 2019, 1,187 ha in 2020, 390 ha in 2021, 183 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,662 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.4% of the area of London (23 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. Pakkading where it started
    1,794 ha
    0.9 %
  2. Bolikhanh
    478 ha
    0.2 %

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 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Mar 2023
After · 9 Apr 2023

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

Other fires nearby

All fires in Laos ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Pakkading fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 March 2023 and 2 April 2023: 12 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 2,259 hectares (22.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Pakkading (1,794 ha, 0.9 %); Bolikhanh (478 ha, 0.2 %).
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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 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.