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Phiang fire, 21 March 2020 Parklai, Phiang

Out · last detection 6 Apr 2020, 06:54 UTC

The fire started on 21 March 2020 in Phiang, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,976 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 28th largest in Xaignabouli since 2016 (of 161 with a page). Number 30 in Laos in 2020, of 188.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Phiang · 2018Phiang · 2016Parklai · 2023Phiang · 2023

Burnt area
6,976ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
17days
21 Mar 2020 – 6 Apr 2020
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
21 Mar
2020
Heat detections
332
in a single hotspot: 146 MW
Danger at start
6
Low · FWI index
Average daily power
310MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Mar6 Apr
6 Apr 2020

How it evolved, day by day

21 Mar 2020 · 90 MW · 2 22 Mar 2020 · 37 MW · 7 23 Mar 2020 · 17 MW · 4 24 Mar 2020 · 114 MW · 10 26 Mar 2020 · 16 MW · 2 27 Mar 2020 · 86 MW · 10 28 Mar 2020 · 675 MW · 42 29 Mar 2020 · 777 MW · 36 30 Mar 2020 · 1,291 MW · 41 31 Mar 2020 · 807 MW · 52 1 Apr 2020 · 267 MW · 34 2 Apr 2020 · 98 MW · 20 3 Apr 2020 · 385 MW · 35 4 Apr 2020 · 102 MW · 18 5 Apr 2020 · 156 MW · 15 6 Apr 2020 · 37 MW · 4
21 Mar 24 Mar 28 Mar 30 Mar 31 Mar 3 Apr 6 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

38°high
38km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.7 mm on 7 Apr.

This area had burned before

71% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,040 ha in 2016, 578 ha in 2017, 2,757 ha in 2018, 2,968 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,927 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 4.4% of the area of London (70 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. Parklai
    4,096 ha
    1.8 %
  2. Phiang where it started
    2,915 ha
    1.0 %

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 2020
Built-up area0.35 ha
Residents≈ 60

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.35 hectares of built-up land and about 60 residents (GHSL 2020, 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.

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)
21 Mar 31.8 °C 59 % 37 km/h 0.5 mm Low 6
22 Mar 33.9 °C 46 % 32 km/h 1.6 mm Low 7
23 Mar 28.8 °C 67 % 38 km/h 11.1 mm Very low 0
24 Mar 30.7 °C 63 % 38 km/h 2.9 mm Very low 1
25 Mar 29.3 °C 68 % 36 km/h 16.2 mm Very low 0
26 Mar 34.3 °C 38 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
27 Mar 36.1 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
28 Mar 36.5 °C 34 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
29 Mar 37.2 °C 34 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
30 Mar 37.9 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
31 Mar 38.3 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
1 Apr 38.1 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
2 Apr 35.3 °C 41 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
3 Apr 35.3 °C 49 % 28 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 12
4 Apr 35.7 °C 40 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
5 Apr 33.9 °C 55 % 35 km/h 1.8 mm Low 6
6 Apr 32.5 °C 53 % 37 km/h 6.0 mm Very low 2
7 Apr after 30.5 °C 66 % 35 km/h 3.7 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Mar 2020
After · 13 Apr 2020

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 · 332Every 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 Phiang fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 21 March 2020 to 6 April 2020 (17 days). The perimeter dates it from 24 March 2020 to 5 April 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,976 hectares (69.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Parklai (4,096 ha, 1.8 %); Phiang (2,915 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 19, 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

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.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 24 March 2020 to 5 April 2020. 332 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 2020, 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.