How long did the Phiang fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 March 2026 to 9 April 2026 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 March 2026 to 2 April 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,063 hectares (30.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Phiang (2,896 ha, 1.0 %); Xayabury (188 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 27, class 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 · 2026-03-27 → 2026-04-09

Phiang fire, 27 March 2026 Phiang, Xayabury

Out · last detection 10 Apr 2026, 18:36 UTC

The fire started on 27 March 2026 in Phiang, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,063 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 58th largest in Xaignabouli since 2016 (of 122 with a page). Number 149 in Laos in 2026, of 287.

Burnt area: 3,063ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 14days; 27 Mar 2026 – 9 Apr 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; districts
Started on: 27 Mar; 2026
Heat detections: 80; in a single hotspot: 90 MW
Danger at start: 19; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 835MW; sum of detected power

Play back 10 Apr 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Mar9 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

27293031123467910

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

44km/h · peak gust

28%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 19.0 mm on 19 Apr.

This area had burned before

50% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 804 ha in 2016, 862 ha in 2017, 682 ha in 2018, 275 ha in 2019, 1,201 ha in 2020, 1,067 ha in 2022, 1,033 ha in 2023, 1 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,534 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Phiang where it started

2,896 ha reached on 27 Mar

1.0 %
Xayabury

188 ha reached on 27 Mar

0.1 %

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)
27 Mar	36.6 °C	29 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
28 Mar	35.3 °C	37 %	31 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 19
29 Mar	34.3 °C	39 %	44 km/h	0.2 mm	Moderate 20
30 Mar	35.8 °C	31 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
31 Mar	35.8 °C	34 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
1 Apr	35.6 °C	37 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
2 Apr	35.8 °C	39 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 21
3 Apr	36.6 °C	36 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
4 Apr	35.3 °C	39 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
5 Apr	36.2 °C	39 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
6 Apr	35.5 °C	40 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
7 Apr	36.1 °C	40 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
8 Apr	37.2 °C	28 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
9 Apr	37.3 °C	28 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
10 Apr after	36.9 °C	26 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
11 Apr after	36.8 °C	30 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
12 Apr after	37.3 °C	27 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
13 Apr after	37.6 °C	30 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
14 Apr after	37.6 °C	31 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
15 Apr after	38.0 °C	29 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
16 Apr after	38.4 °C	21 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
17 Apr after	36.8 °C	32 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
18 Apr after	34.8 °C	45 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
19 Apr after	31.0 °C	67 %	36 km/h	19.0 mm	Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 20 Mar 2026

After · 16 Apr 2026

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 4 April 2026 the air beside the fire reached 108 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 84: 5.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak108 µg/m³

Days over the guideline19 days

PM10134 µg/m³

Optical depth2.38

WHO 15

25262728293031123456789101112

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 · 80Every 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?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 March 2026 to 9 April 2026 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 March 2026 to 2 April 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,063 hectares (30.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Phiang (2,896 ha, 1.0 %); Xayabury (188 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 27, class 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