Pek fire, March 2023 Khoune, Pek
The fire started on 21 March 2023 in Pek, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,164 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 99th largest in Xiangkhouang since 2016 (of 109 with a page). Number 208 in Laos in 2023, of 239.
- Burnt area
- 2,164ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 13days
- 21 Mar 2023 – 2 Apr 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 21 Mar
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 89
- in a single hotspot: 155 MW
- Average daily power
- 389MW
- detected power per day, on average
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
83% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 195 ha in 2016, 1,030 ha in 2017, 564 ha in 2018, 1,379 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,806 ha that had burned before.
- 783 ha Pek fire, March 2020 8,891 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 705 ha Pek fire, March 2017 2,639 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 596 ha Khoune fire, March 2020 3,373 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
1,127 ha0.6 %
-
Pek where it started1,049 ha0.8 %
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.
Detections table · 89Every 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 Pek fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 21 March 2023 to 2 April 2023 (13 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 March 2023 to 26 March 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,164 hectares (21.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Khoune (1,127 ha, 0.6 %); Pek (1,049 ha, 0.8 %).
- 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
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 21 March 2023 to 26 March 2023. 89 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
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.