Skip to content
worldfires
en
LA · Laos · →

Parklai fire, 15 March 2023 Parklai, Mad

Out · last detection 20 Apr 2023, 07:03 UTC

The fire started on 15 March 2023 in Parklai, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 36 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,010 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 7th largest in Xaignabouli since 2016 (of 161 with a page). Number 15 in Laos in 2023, of 239.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Parklai · 2020Parklai · 2019Parklai · 2019Parklai · 2018

Burnt area
14,010ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
36days
15 Mar 2023 – 19 Apr 2023
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
15 Mar
2023
Heat detections
1,070
in a single hotspot: 193 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
285MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Mar19 Apr
20 Apr 2023

How it evolved, day by day

15 Mar 2023 · 85 MW · 4 16 Mar 2023 · 53 MW · 8 17 Mar 2023 · 589 MW · 17 18 Mar 2023 · 13 MW · 1 21 Mar 2023 · 16 MW · 4 22 Mar 2023 · 14 MW · 7 23 Mar 2023 · 2 MW · 1 24 Mar 2023 · 699 MW · 29 25 Mar 2023 · 924 MW · 66 26 Mar 2023 · 1,388 MW · 124 27 Mar 2023 · 628 MW · 61 28 Mar 2023 · 114 MW · 20 29 Mar 2023 · 1 MW · 1 30 Mar 2023 · 3 MW · 1 31 Mar 2023 · 50 MW · 17 1 Apr 2023 · 255 MW · 27 2 Apr 2023 · 330 MW · 44 3 Apr 2023 · 1,439 MW · 156 4 Apr 2023 · 1,128 MW · 159 5 Apr 2023 · 828 MW · 115 6 Apr 2023 · 108 MW · 38 7 Apr 2023 · 124 MW · 21 8 Apr 2023 · 104 MW · 7 9 Apr 2023 · 18 MW · 4 10 Apr 2023 · 193 MW · 20 11 Apr 2023 · 133 MW · 35 12 Apr 2023 · 46 MW · 16 13 Apr 2023 · 37 MW · 5 14 Apr 2023 · 203 MW · 7 15 Apr 2023 · 136 MW · 13 16 Apr 2023 · 26 MW · 6 17 Apr 2023 · 60 MW · 11 18 Apr 2023 · 31 MW · 10 19 Apr 2023 · 184 MW · 13 20 Apr 2023 · 5 MW · 2
15 Mar 22 Mar 27 Mar 1 Apr 3 Apr 6 Apr 11 Apr 16 Apr

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
42km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 23 Apr.

This area had burned before

46% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,358 ha in 2016, 778 ha in 2018, 4,019 ha in 2019, 3,178 ha in 2020, 418 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,502 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 8.8% of the area of London (140 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. Parklai where it started
    14,091 ha
    6.3 %
  2. Mad
    0 ha
    0.0 %

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

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 37.8 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 40
23 Mar 37.8 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Mar 37.9 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
25 Mar 38.1 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Mar 36.6 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Mar 35.5 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
28 Mar 34.3 °C 41 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
29 Mar 33.1 °C 50 % 30 km/h 0.3 mm High 26
30 Mar 33.6 °C 41 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
31 Mar 35.6 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
1 Apr 36.1 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
2 Apr 37.7 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
3 Apr 37.6 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Apr 37.2 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Apr 37.5 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
6 Apr 37.2 °C 27 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Apr 36.2 °C 32 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Apr 34.3 °C 48 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
9 Apr 34.3 °C 43 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
10 Apr 37.4 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
11 Apr 38.7 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Apr 39.1 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Apr 37.8 °C 34 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Apr 39.4 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Apr 39.4 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
16 Apr 35.0 °C 47 % 31 km/h 0.4 mm High 32
17 Apr 37.9 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Apr 39.6 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Apr 39.5 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
20 Apr after 38.6 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.6 mm High 32
21 Apr after 37.2 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
22 Apr after 38.1 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Apr after 36.8 °C 33 % 26 km/h 1.0 mm High 27

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Mar 2023
After · 26 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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 6 April 2023 the air beside the fire reached 870 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 497: 33 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak870 µg/m³
Days over the guideline41 days
PM101,244 µg/m³
Optical depth4.19
1314151617181920212223242526272829303112345678910111213141516171819202122
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 · 1,070Every 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 Parklai fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 15 March 2023 to 19 April 2023 (36 days). The perimeter dates it from 22 March 2023 to 13 April 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 14,010 hectares (140.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Parklai (14,091 ha, 6.3 %); Mad (0 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.1 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, class Very 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.

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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 22 March 2023 to 13 April 2023. 1,070 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.