Sukhuma fire, February 2026 Moonlapamok, Sukhuma
The fire started on 2 February 2026 in Sukhuma, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,992 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 9th largest in Champasak since 2016 (of 22 with a page). Number 166 in Laos in 2026, of 308.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 2,992ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 20days
- 2 Feb 2026 – 21 Feb 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 2 Feb
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 70
- in a single hotspot: 32 MW
- Danger at start
- 24
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 37MW
- 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 49 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.1 mm on 27 Feb.
This area had burned before
15% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 13 ha in 2016, 416 ha in 2017, 70 ha in 2021, 60 ha in 2022, 245 ha in 2023, 85 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 448 ha that had burned before.
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
-
2,266 ha1.0 %
-
Sukhuma where it started745 ha0.7 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Feb | 32.4 °C | 39 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 3 Feb | 31.9 °C | 43 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 4 Feb | 32.7 °C | 42 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 5 Feb | 33.8 °C | 41 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 6 Feb | 34.4 °C | 40 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 7 Feb | 32.5 °C | 55 % | 30 km/h | 0.6 mm | High 22 |
| 8 Feb | 32.7 °C | 45 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 9 Feb | 33.8 °C | 36 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 10 Feb | 34.1 °C | 37 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 11 Feb | 35.3 °C | 37 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 12 Feb | 34.8 °C | 39 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 13 Feb | 35.7 °C | 35 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 14 Feb | 35.9 °C | 33 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 15 Feb | 36.2 °C | 34 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 16 Feb | 36.5 °C | 35 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 17 Feb | 36.9 °C | 31 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 18 Feb | 36.5 °C | 33 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 19 Feb | 34.9 °C | 39 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 20 Feb | 34.7 °C | 38 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 21 Feb | 34.6 °C | 37 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 22 Feb after | 35.5 °C | 37 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 23 Feb after | 34.9 °C | 45 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 24 Feb after | 35.6 °C | 42 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 25 Feb after | 35.4 °C | 42 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 26 Feb after | 34.1 °C | 45 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 27 Feb after | 28.0 °C | 65 % | 26 km/h | 7.1 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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 24 February 2026 the air beside the fire reached 72 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 52: 3.5 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 · 70Every 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 Sukhuma fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 2 February 2026 to 21 February 2026 (20 days). The perimeter dates it from 8 February 2026 to 21 February 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,992 hectares (29.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Moonlapamok (2,266 ha, 1.0 %); Sukhuma (745 ha, 0.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, 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
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 8 February 2026 to 21 February 2026. 70 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.