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LA · Laos · –

Park Ou fire, 22 March 2026 Pak Xeng, Ngoi, Park Ou

Out · last detection 21 Apr 2026, 06:01 UTC

The fire started on 22 March 2026 in Park Ou, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 32 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 55,314 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 municipalities.

Number 4 in Laos in 2026, of 308.

GWIS near-real-time perimeter, from the layer that changed in October 2025: this fire is not compared with fires from earlier years, because since then the GWIS layer gives more and larger perimeters.

Burnt area
55,314ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
32days
22 Mar 2026 – 22 Apr 2026
Municipalities hit
4
districts
Started on
22 Mar
2026
Heat detections
1,858
in a single hotspot: 322 MW
Danger at start
8
Low · FWI index
Average daily power
1.2GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Mar22 Apr
21 Apr 2026

How it evolved, day by day

22 Mar 2026 · 65 MW · 3 23 Mar 2026 · 199 MW · 16 24 Mar 2026 · 116 MW · 22 25 Mar 2026 · 2,065 MW · 47 26 Mar 2026 · 705 MW · 61 27 Mar 2026 · 1,108 MW · 52 28 Mar 2026 · 616 MW · 49 29 Mar 2026 · 19 MW · 4 30 Mar 2026 · 164 MW · 15 31 Mar 2026 · 127 MW · 14 1 Apr 2026 · 166 MW · 10 2 Apr 2026 · 824 MW · 26 3 Apr 2026 · 1,151 MW · 90 4 Apr 2026 · 592 MW · 39 5 Apr 2026 · 2,487 MW · 76 6 Apr 2026 · 1,979 MW · 90 7 Apr 2026 · 584 MW · 42 8 Apr 2026 · 1,270 MW · 56 9 Apr 2026 · 2,250 MW · 179 10 Apr 2026 · 3,552 MW · 148 11 Apr 2026 · 3,079 MW · 132 12 Apr 2026 · 3,230 MW · 143 13 Apr 2026 · 989 MW · 75 14 Apr 2026 · 2,549 MW · 174 15 Apr 2026 · 1,122 MW · 82 16 Apr 2026 · 590 MW · 55 17 Apr 2026 · 2,768 MW · 92 18 Apr 2026 · 1,895 MW · 46 19 Apr 2026 · 550 MW · 15 21 Apr 2026 · 161 MW · 5
22 Mar 28 Mar 3 Apr 10 Apr 15 Apr

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

Fire front film How it spread from one satellite pass to the next (59 passes) and with what wind. Watch the film

The weather it burned in

37°high
49km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.8 mm on 23 Apr.

This area had burned before

89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,361 ha in 2016, 7,136 ha in 2017, 5,061 ha in 2018, 17,236 ha in 2019, 19,990 ha in 2020, 9,048 ha in 2021, 5,696 ha in 2022, 36,020 ha in 2023, 12,718 ha in 2024, 6,041 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 49,347 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 35% of the area of London (553 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. 32,007 ha reached on 26 Mar
    19 %
  2. 17,420 ha reached on 22 Mar
    9.0 %
  3. Park Ou where it started
    5,632 ha reached on 22 Mar
    6.4 %
  4. 1,399 ha reached on 23 Mar
    0.7 %

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 area7.4 ha
Residents≈ 4,000

Inside the perimeter there were about 7.4 hectares of built-up land and about 4,000 residents (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

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)
22 Mar 30.7 °C 54 % 41 km/h 1.1 mm Low 8
23 Mar 33.8 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
24 Mar 34.6 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
25 Mar 33.6 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
26 Mar 35.3 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
27 Mar 34.8 °C 31 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
28 Mar 35.6 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
29 Mar 33.3 °C 35 % 49 km/h 0.4 mm High 28
30 Mar 34.6 °C 32 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
31 Mar 34.8 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
1 Apr 34.3 °C 36 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
2 Apr 33.8 °C 40 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
3 Apr 36.8 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Apr 36.0 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
5 Apr 35.0 °C 36 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
6 Apr 35.6 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
7 Apr 35.3 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
8 Apr 35.4 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
9 Apr 35.6 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Apr 35.3 °C 30 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Apr 35.1 °C 32 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Apr 36.0 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Apr 37.0 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Apr 35.2 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Apr 35.1 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Apr 36.3 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 Apr 36.2 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Apr 32.3 °C 45 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
19 Apr 31.0 °C 60 % 36 km/h 2.6 mm Low 6
20 Apr 32.3 °C 51 % 39 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 15
21 Apr 34.1 °C 48 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
22 Apr 35.3 °C 40 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
23 Apr after 32.6 °C 48 % 36 km/h 1.8 mm Moderate 11

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Mar 2026
After · 29 Apr 2026

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 · Copernicus

On 14 April 2026 the air beside the fire reached 213 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 158: 11 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak213 µg/m³
Days over the guideline37 days
PM10231 µg/m³
Optical depth3.09
20 Mar28 Mar5 Apr13 Apr21 Apr
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 1,858Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 22 March 2026 to 22 April 2026 (32 days). The perimeter dates it from 23 March 2026 to 22 April 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 55,314 hectares (553.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Pak Xeng (32,007 ha, 19 %); Ngoi (17,420 ha, 9.0 %); Park Ou (5,632 ha, 6.4 %); Nambak (1,399 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class High.
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.

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; 5 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 23 March 2026 to 22 April 2026. 1,858 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • 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.