Paktha fire, March 2026 Paktha
The fire started on 22 March 2026 in Paktha, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,260 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 46th largest in Bokeo since 2016 (of 59 with a page). Number 240 in Laos in 2026, of 287.
- Burnt area
- 2,260ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 25days
- 22 Mar 2026 – 15 Apr 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 22 Mar
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 65
- in a single hotspot: 167 MW
- Energy released
- 1.7GW
- 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
88% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,162 ha in 2016, 904 ha in 2017, 203 ha in 2018, 238 ha in 2019, 823 ha in 2020, 229 ha in 2021, 25 ha in 2022, 1,742 ha in 2023, 1,167 ha in 2024, 321 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,985 ha that had burned before.
- 1,588 ha Wiang Kaen fire, March 2023 6,011 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 860 ha Wiang Kaen fire, March 2024 1,089 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 823 ha Wiang Kaen fire, March 2020 1,591 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 156 ha Wiang Kaen fire, April 2016 2,675 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Paktha where it started2,271 ha reached on 22 Mar2.5 %
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 18 April 2026 the air beside the fire reached 237 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 174: 12 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 · 65Every 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 Paktha fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 22 March 2026 to 15 April 2026 (25 days). The perimeter dates it from 24 March 2026 to 10 April 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,260 hectares (22.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Paktha (2,271 ha, 2.5 %).
- 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.