Pek fire, March 2025 Pek, Khoune
The fire started on 22 March 2025 in Pek, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,093 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 103th largest in Xiangkhouang since 2016 (of 107 with a page). Number 44 in Laos in 2025, of 51.
- Burnt area
- 2,093ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 8days
- 22 Mar 2025 – 29 Mar 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 22 Mar
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 78
- in a single hotspot: 372 MW
- Energy released
- 3.4GW
- 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
94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 451 ha in 2017, 18 ha in 2018, 1,231 ha in 2020, 289 ha in 2022, 884 ha in 2023, 1,638 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,962 ha that had burned before.
- 1,638 ha Pek fire, March 2024 6,485 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 709 ha Pek fire, March 2020 8,891 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 522 ha Khoune fire, March 2020 3,373 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 451 ha Pek fire, March 2017 2,639 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 353 ha Pek fire, March 2023 2,164 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Pek where it started1,381 ha reached on 22 Mar1.1 %
-
723 ha reached on 22 Mar0.4 %
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 27 March 2025 the air beside the fire reached 292 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 161: 11 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 · 78Every 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 22 March 2025 to 29 March 2025 (8 days). The perimeter dates it from 24 March 2025 to 29 March 2025.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,093 hectares (20.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Pek (1,381 ha, 1.1 %); Khoune (723 ha, 0.4 %).
- 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.