Phookood fire, March 2020 Phookood
The fire started on 11 March 2020 in Phookood, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,046 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 106th largest in Xiangkhouang since 2016 (of 107 with a page). Number 155 in Laos in 2020, of 169.
- Burnt area
- 2,046ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 11days
- 11 Mar 2020 – 21 Mar 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 11 Mar
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 63
- in a single hotspot: 676 MW
- Energy released
- 4.6GW
- sum of detected power
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.
This area had burned before
93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 634 ha in 2016, 1,630 ha in 2017, 1,562 ha in 2018, 1,053 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,893 ha that had burned before.
- 1,562 ha Phookood fire, April 2018 2,320 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,053 ha Phookood fire, March 2019 2,752 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 788 ha Phookood fire, March 2017 8,774 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Phookood where it started2,055 ha reached on 11 Mar0.8 %
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.
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.
Detections table · 63Every 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 Phookood fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 March 2020 to 21 March 2020 (11 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 March 2020 to 14 March 2020.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,046 hectares (20.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Phookood (2,055 ha, 0.8 %).
- 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
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.