How long did the Phouvong fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 21 February 2023 to 14 March 2023 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 February 2023 to 7 March 2023.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,951 hectares (39.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Phouvong (3,977 ha, 1.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, class Very 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 · 2023-02-21 → 2023-03-14

Phouvong fire, 21 February 2023 Phouvong

Out · last detection 14 Mar 2023, 17:48 UTC

The fire started on 21 February 2023 in Phouvong, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,951 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 8th largest in Attapeu since 2016 (of 37 with a page). Number 74 in Laos in 2023, of 239.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Phouvong · 2024 Sanxay · 2025

Burnt area: 3,951ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 22days; 21 Feb 2023 – 14 Mar 2023
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 21 Feb; 2023
Heat detections: 343; in a single hotspot: 289 MW
Danger at start: 27; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 317MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Feb14 Mar

Play back 14 Mar 2023

How it evolved, day by day

21 Feb 25 Feb 28 Feb 3 Mar 6 Mar 10 Mar 13 Mar

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

38°high

46km/h · peak gust

20%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

67% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,307 ha in 2019, 1,945 ha in 2020, 1,663 ha in 2021, 943 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,650 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 2.5% of the area of London (40 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Phouvong where it started

3,977 ha reached on 21 Feb

1.2 %

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 2025

Built-up area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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 Feb	33.9 °C	31 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
22 Feb	33.9 °C	30 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
23 Feb	35.3 °C	29 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
24 Feb	35.1 °C	20 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
25 Feb	32.9 °C	31 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
26 Feb	31.1 °C	36 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
27 Feb	31.9 °C	38 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
28 Feb	35.4 °C	31 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
1 Mar	36.8 °C	29 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
2 Mar	34.3 °C	30 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
3 Mar	35.4 °C	25 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
4 Mar	34.6 °C	28 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
5 Mar	33.6 °C	29 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
6 Mar	35.0 °C	24 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
7 Mar	35.8 °C	24 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
8 Mar	37.6 °C	20 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
9 Mar	35.8 °C	28 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
10 Mar	36.9 °C	23 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
11 Mar	37.3 °C	25 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
12 Mar	36.7 °C	24 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
13 Mar	34.6 °C	28 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
14 Mar	35.5 °C	29 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
15 Mar after	37.4 °C	26 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
16 Mar after	37.5 °C	28 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
17 Mar after	39.0 °C	20 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
18 Mar after	38.3 °C	28 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
19 Mar after	38.6 °C	28 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
20 Mar after	37.3 °C	33 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
21 Mar after	38.2 °C	31 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
22 Mar after	39.1 °C	30 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
23 Mar after	37.5 °C	36 %	27 km/h	0.2 mm	High 34
24 Mar after	38.0 °C	34 %	24 km/h	0.3 mm	High 34

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 14 Feb 2023

After · 21 Mar 2023

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 12 March 2023 the air beside the fire reached 151 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 72: 4.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak151 µg/m³

Days over the guideline17 days

PM10216 µg/m³

Optical depth1.32

WHO 15

192021222324252627281234567891011121314151617

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 · 343Every 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 Phouvong fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 21 February 2023 to 14 March 2023 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 February 2023 to 7 March 2023.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,951 hectares (39.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Phouvong (3,977 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, class Very 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 ↗

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.

RSS Changes to this page

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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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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 27 February 2023 to 7 March 2023. 343 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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