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Pha Oudom fire, 19 March 2023 Pha Oudom

Out · last detection 12 Apr 2023, 18:43 UTC

The fire started on 19 March 2023 in Pha Oudom, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,955 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 16th largest in Bokeo since 2016 (of 73 with a page). Number 52 in Laos in 2023, of 239.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Pha Oudom · 2016Pha Oudom · 2020Pha Oudom · 2017Pha Oudom · 2020

Burnt area
5,955ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
25days
19 Mar 2023 – 12 Apr 2023
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
19 Mar
2023
Heat detections
241
in a single hotspot: 275 MW
Danger at start
22
High · FWI index
Average daily power
309MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Mar12 Apr
12 Apr 2023

How it evolved, day by day

19 Mar 2023 · 195 MW · 1 20 Mar 2023 · 9 MW · 1 22 Mar 2023 · 2 MW · 3 23 Mar 2023 · 266 MW · 11 24 Mar 2023 · 357 MW · 29 25 Mar 2023 · 156 MW · 10 26 Mar 2023 · 1,141 MW · 42 28 Mar 2023 · 155 MW · 7 29 Mar 2023 · 369 MW · 7 30 Mar 2023 · 93 MW · 11 31 Mar 2023 · 110 MW · 5 1 Apr 2023 · 1 MW · 1 2 Apr 2023 · 78 MW · 4 3 Apr 2023 · 326 MW · 10 4 Apr 2023 · 31 MW · 3 5 Apr 2023 · 1,358 MW · 26 6 Apr 2023 · 13 MW · 6 7 Apr 2023 · 6 MW · 4 8 Apr 2023 · 126 MW · 6 9 Apr 2023 · 80 MW · 8 10 Apr 2023 · 2,188 MW · 33 11 Apr 2023 · 47 MW · 11 12 Apr 2023 · 4 MW · 2
19 Mar 24 Mar 29 Mar 2 Apr 6 Apr 10 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
45km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.3 mm on 22 Apr.

This area had burned before

89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,324 ha in 2016, 2,582 ha in 2017, 214 ha in 2019, 3,573 ha in 2020, 383 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,317 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.8% of the area of London (60 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. Pha Oudom where it started
    5,984 ha
    3.5 %

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 area1.2 ha
Residents≈ 300

Inside the perimeter there were about 1.2 hectares of built-up land and about 300 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)
19 Mar 35.2 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
20 Mar 34.1 °C 39 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
21 Mar 34.7 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.9 mm High 23
22 Mar 35.4 °C 31 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
23 Mar 35.7 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
24 Mar 35.6 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
25 Mar 35.3 °C 31 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
26 Mar 35.6 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Mar 35.3 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
28 Mar 36.8 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Mar 35.7 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
30 Mar 35.2 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
31 Mar 35.9 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Apr 36.7 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
2 Apr 36.6 °C 29 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
3 Apr 35.8 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
4 Apr 35.9 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
5 Apr 36.6 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
6 Apr 37.0 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
7 Apr 36.5 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 Apr 36.8 °C 36 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Apr 38.0 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Apr 38.9 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Apr 39.1 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Apr 38.9 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
13 Apr after 38.9 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Apr after 40.0 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Apr after 39.3 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
16 Apr after 39.0 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Apr after 38.3 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
18 Apr after 40.0 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Apr after 40.1 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Apr after 39.1 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Apr after 39.1 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Apr after 38.1 °C 33 % 34 km/h 2.3 mm High 22

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Mar 2023
After · 19 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.

Detections table · 241Every 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 Pha Oudom fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 19 March 2023 to 12 April 2023 (25 days). The perimeter dates it from 20 March 2023 to 12 April 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,955 hectares (59.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pha Oudom (5,984 ha, 3.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.1 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.

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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 20 March 2023 to 12 April 2023. 241 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.