Phoukhoune fire, 20 March 2023 Phoukhoune
The fire started on 20 March 2023 in Phoukhoune, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,586 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 44th largest in Luang Prabang since 2016 (of 295 with a page). Number 54 in Laos in 2023, of 239.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 5,586ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 9days
- 20 Mar 2023 – 28 Mar 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 20 Mar
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 203
- in a single hotspot: 603 MW
- Danger at start
- 15
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.0GW
- 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 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.2 mm on 30 Mar.
This area had burned before
71% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,206 ha in 2017, 1,544 ha in 2018, 905 ha in 2020, 1,566 ha in 2021, 3,551 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,956 ha that had burned before.
- 1,566 ha Phoukhoune fire, March 2021 2,008 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,544 ha Phoukhoune fire, April 2018 3,658 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,206 ha Phoukhoune fire, April 2017 2,422 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 300 ha Phoukhoune fire, March 2020 2,891 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
-
Phoukhoune where it started5,620 ha reached on 21 Mar3.4 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 0.00 hectares of built-up land and about 80 residents (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
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 | 31.0 °C | 41 % | 45 km/h | 1.3 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 22 Mar | 31.8 °C | 32 % | 45 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 24 |
| 23 Mar | 32.7 °C | 30 % | 44 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 26 |
| 24 Mar | 32.9 °C | 28 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 25 Mar | 33.5 °C | 26 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 26 Mar | 31.4 °C | 30 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 27 Mar | 30.8 °C | 36 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 28 Mar | 29.5 °C | 49 % | 38 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 22 |
| 29 Mar after | 29.5 °C | 48 % | 36 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 21 |
| 30 Mar after | 29.1 °C | 49 % | 30 km/h | 2.2 mm | Low 7 |
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 25 March 2023 the air beside the fire reached 411 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 201: 13 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 · 203Every 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 · 22 km away
- 23,475 haPhookood17 March 2026 · 37 days · 23 km away
- 9,867 haPhonxayMarch 2024 · 13 days · 32 km away
- 13,478 haPhoukhoune19 March 2026 · 21 days · 35 km away
- 11,228 haPhonxay8 April 2018 · 7 days · 35 km away
- 23,349 haPhoukhoune20 March 2026 · 28 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Phoukhoune fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 20 March 2023 to 28 March 2023 (9 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 March 2023 to 27 March 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,586 hectares (55.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Phoukhoune (5,620 ha, 3.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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
History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 27 March 2023 → 28 March 2023.
- Start date: 21 March 2023 → 20 March 2023.
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 21 March 2023 to 27 March 2023. 203 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 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.