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Park Ou fire, 3 April 2017 Park Ou

Out · last detection 9 Apr 2017, 06:49 UTC

The fire started on 3 April 2017 in Park Ou, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,801 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 84th largest in Luang Prabang since 2016 (of 293 with a page). Number 30 in Laos in 2017, of 114.

Burnt area
3,801ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
3 Apr 2017 – 8 Apr 2017
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
3 Apr
2017
Heat detections
97
in a single hotspot: 212 MW
Danger at start
3
Very low · FWI index
Energy released
2.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Apr 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Apr8 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

3456789

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

33°high
41km/h · peak gust
39%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.8 mm on 12 Apr.

This area had burned before

47% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,803 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Park Ou where it started
    3,823 ha reached on 3 Apr
    4.3 %

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.

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)
3 Apr 28.0 °C 50 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
4 Apr 30.9 °C 46 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm Low 7
5 Apr 30.0 °C 46 % 31 km/h 0.3 mm Low 9
6 Apr 31.9 °C 42 % 38 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 12
7 Apr 31.7 °C 48 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 13
8 Apr 33.3 °C 39 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
9 Apr after 33.7 °C 39 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
10 Apr after 34.2 °C 39 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
11 Apr after 35.1 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 19
12 Apr after 33.4 °C 43 % 37 km/h 2.8 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Mar 2017
After · 15 Apr 2017

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 · 97Every 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 Park Ou fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 April 2017 and 8 April 2017: 6 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 3,801 hectares (38.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Park Ou (3,823 ha, 4.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.3 °C, humidity dropped to 39 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 15, class Moderate.
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.

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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.