How long did the Pha Oudom fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 April 2024 to 23 April 2024 (10 days). The perimeter dates it from 15 April 2024 to 22 April 2024.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,835 hectares (28.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Pha Oudom (2,850 ha, 1.7 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 40.2 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.

LA · Laos · 2024-04-14 → 2024-04-23

Pha Oudom fire, 14 April 2024 Pha Oudom

Out · last detection 23 Apr 2024, 06:43 UTC

The fire started on 14 April 2024 in Pha Oudom, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,835 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 41th largest in Bokeo since 2016 (of 59 with a page). Number 50 in Laos in 2024, of 109.

Burnt area: 2,835ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 10days; 14 Apr 2024 – 23 Apr 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 14 Apr; 2024
Heat detections: 79; in a single hotspot: 193 MW
Danger at start: 34; High · FWI index
Energy released: 2.8GW; sum of detected power

Play back 23 Apr 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Apr23 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

14151617181920212223

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

The weather it burned in

40°high

42km/h · peak gust

28%lowest humidity

It had gone 22 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

88% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 106 ha in 2017, 717 ha in 2018, 711 ha in 2019, 2,045 ha in 2020, 97 ha in 2021, 975 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,503 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Pha Oudom where it started

2,850 ha reached on 14 Apr

1.7 %

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.

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)
14 Apr	38.2 °C	34 %	33 km/h	0.1 mm	High 34
15 Apr	38.3 °C	32 %	39 km/h	0.7 mm	High 33
16 Apr	37.5 °C	38 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
17 Apr	37.4 °C	35 %	36 km/h	0.1 mm	High 33
18 Apr	35.7 °C	41 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
19 Apr	36.5 °C	40 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
20 Apr	37.0 °C	40 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
21 Apr	38.4 °C	30 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
22 Apr	40.0 °C	28 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
23 Apr	40.2 °C	29 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
24 Apr after	38.3 °C	39 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
25 Apr after	37.3 °C	39 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
26 Apr after	36.8 °C	38 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
27 Apr after	39.5 °C	28 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
28 Apr after	40.3 °C	27 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
29 Apr after	40.0 °C	32 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
30 Apr after	39.0 °C	34 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
1 May after	41.2 °C	26 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
2 May after	39.6 °C	35 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
3 May after	37.4 °C	34 %	37 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 38

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 7 Apr 2024

After · 30 Apr 2024

Before After

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 23 April 2024 the air beside the fire reached 89 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 50: 3.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak89 µg/m³

Days over the guideline15 days

PM10134 µg/m³

Optical depth1.41

WHO 15

121314151617181920212223242526

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 · 79Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

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 14 April 2024 to 23 April 2024 (10 days). The perimeter dates it from 15 April 2024 to 22 April 2024.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,835 hectares (28.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Pha Oudom (2,850 ha, 1.7 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 40.2 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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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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.

Where it burned