Phookood fire, 11 March 2023 Phookood
The fire started on 11 March 2023 in Phookood, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,311 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 49th largest in Xiangkhouang since 2016 (of 109 with a page). Number 89 in Laos in 2023, of 239.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 3,311ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 19days
- 11 Mar 2023 – 29 Mar 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 11 Mar
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 154
- in a single hotspot: 190 MW
- Danger at start
- 16
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 241MW
- 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 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.3 mm on 30 Mar.
This area had burned before
76% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,203 ha in 2017, 194 ha in 2018, 116 ha in 2019, 40 ha in 2020, 627 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,525 ha that had burned before.
- 2,203 ha Phookood fire, March 2017 8,774 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 194 ha Phookood fire, April 2018 2,320 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 116 ha Phookood fire, March 2019 2,752 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 36 ha Phookood fire, March 2020 2,046 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
-
Phookood where it started3,325 ha1.3 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 Mar | 30.2 °C | 41 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 12 Mar | 27.1 °C | 60 % | 24 km/h | 2.4 mm | Very low 4 |
| 13 Mar | 21.8 °C | 72 % | 35 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very low 5 |
| 14 Mar | 26.8 °C | 48 % | 30 km/h | 0.3 mm | Low 10 |
| 15 Mar | 30.1 °C | 36 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 16 Mar | 27.5 °C | 50 % | 26 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 17 Mar | 27.6 °C | 53 % | 28 km/h | 3.0 mm | Very low 3 |
| 18 Mar | 30.6 °C | 50 % | 34 km/h | 5.4 mm | Very low 2 |
| 19 Mar | 30.7 °C | 50 % | 41 km/h | 0.7 mm | Low 7 |
| 20 Mar | 31.1 °C | 46 % | 39 km/h | 3.5 mm | Very low 4 |
| 21 Mar | 30.9 °C | 46 % | 48 km/h | 3.3 mm | Very low 4 |
| 22 Mar | 31.9 °C | 36 % | 46 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 23 Mar | 32.4 °C | 36 % | 45 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 24 Mar | 32.9 °C | 33 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 25 Mar | 33.0 °C | 30 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 26 Mar | 31.2 °C | 35 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 27 Mar | 30.7 °C | 40 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 28 Mar | 29.4 °C | 53 % | 41 km/h | 0.7 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 29 Mar | 30.3 °C | 46 % | 39 km/h | 1.3 mm | Low 11 |
| 30 Mar after | 28.9 °C | 56 % | 34 km/h | 3.3 mm | Very low 3 |
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 · 154Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 8,774 haPhookood20 March 2017 · 9 days · 3 km away
- 6,178 haPhookood23 March 2025 · 8 days · 6 km away
- 6,009 haPhoukhoune16 March 2023 · 20 days · 10 km away
- 23,475 haPhookood17 March 2026 · 37 days · 11 km away
- 13,478 haPhoukhoune19 March 2026 · 21 days · 27 km away
- 5,813 haPhookood19 March 2026 · 21 days · 31 km away
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 2023 to 29 March 2023 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 March 2023 to 28 March 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,311 hectares (33.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Phookood (3,325 ha, 1.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 21, 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.
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 18 March 2023 to 28 March 2023. 154 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.