How long did the Phiang fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 April 2017 and 11 April 2017: 4 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,175 hectares (31.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Phiang (3,188 ha, 1.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 44 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 12, class Moderate.

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 · 2017-04-08 → 2017-04-11

Phiang fire, 8 April 2017 Phiang

Out · last detection 11 Apr 2017, 06:10 UTC

The fire started on 8 April 2017 in Phiang, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,175 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 53th largest in Xaignabouli since 2016 (of 122 with a page). Number 41 in Laos in 2017, of 114.

Burnt area: 3,175ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 4days; 8 Apr 2017 – 11 Apr 2017
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 8 Apr; 2017
Heat detections: 68; in a single hotspot: 158 MW
Danger at start: 10; Low · FWI index
Energy released: 1.3GW; sum of detected power

Play back 11 Apr 2017

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Apr11 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

891011

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

The weather it burned in

37°high

37km/h · peak gust

44%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 10.5 mm on 12 Apr.

This area had burned before

88% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,785 ha in 2016.

2,761 ha Phiang fire, April 2016 18,466 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Phiang where it started

3,188 ha reached on 8 Apr

1.1 %

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)
8 Apr	36.5 °C	45 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
9 Apr	36.9 °C	45 %	37 km/h	0.3 mm	Moderate 12
10 Apr	36.6 °C	49 %	34 km/h	0.7 mm	Low 11
11 Apr	37.4 °C	44 %	31 km/h	1.9 mm	Low 7
12 Apr after	35.4 °C	51 %	31 km/h	10.5 mm	Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 1 Apr 2017

After · 18 Apr 2017

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.

Detections table · 68Every 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 Phiang fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 April 2017 and 11 April 2017: 4 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,175 hectares (31.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Phiang (3,188 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 44 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 12, class Moderate.
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