Phonxay fire, 1 April 2026 Phonxay
The fire started on 1 April 2026 in Phonxay, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,881 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 137th largest in Luang Prabang since 2016 (of 295 with a page). Number 176 in Laos in 2026, of 308.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 2,881ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 1 Apr 2026 – 7 Apr 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 1 Apr
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 46
- in a single hotspot: 355 MW
- Danger at start
- 16
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 470MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,286 ha in 2016, 830 ha in 2017, 1,393 ha in 2018, 310 ha in 2019, 911 ha in 2020, 1,172 ha in 2023, 40 ha in 2024, 389 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,673 ha that had burned before.
- 1,286 ha Phonxay fire, March 2016 2,535 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 860 ha Phonxay fire, March 2023 2,073 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 613 ha Phonxay fire, April 2018 4,256 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 369 ha Phonxay fire, March 2020 4,852 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 351 ha Phonxay fire, March 2020 2,837 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 313 ha Phonxay fire, March 2023 2,722 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 310 ha Phonxay fire, March 2019 3,633 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Phonxay where it started2,895 ha1.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Apr | 32.1 °C | 40 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 2 Apr | 30.9 °C | 47 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 3 Apr | 32.8 °C | 39 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 4 Apr | 31.9 °C | 41 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 5 Apr | 31.4 °C | 44 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 6 Apr | 32.3 °C | 43 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 7 Apr | 32.9 °C | 42 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 8 Apr after | 34.6 °C | 28 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 9 Apr after | 34.2 °C | 30 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 10 Apr after | 33.5 °C | 30 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 11 Apr after | 33.1 °C | 34 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 12 Apr after | 33.8 °C | 29 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 13 Apr after | 34.3 °C | 33 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 14 Apr after | 33.6 °C | 36 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 15 Apr after | 34.0 °C | 33 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 16 Apr after | 35.6 °C | 22 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 17 Apr after | 34.5 °C | 30 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 7 April 2026 the air beside the fire reached 178 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 129: 8.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 46Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Phonxay fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 1 April 2026 to 7 April 2026 (7 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 April 2026 to 7 April 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,881 hectares (28.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Phonxay (2,895 ha, 1.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.9 °C, humidity dropped to 39 % and gusts hit 45 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
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.
Report an error
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 2 April 2026 to 7 April 2026. 46 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.
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.