How long did the Ta Oi fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 March 2016 to 14 April 2016 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 30 March 2016 to 7 April 2016.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,634 hectares (36.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ta Oi (2,059 ha, 0.8 %); Samuoi (1,598 ha, 2.5 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 33.3 °C, humidity dropped to 36 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 22, 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.

LA · Laos · 2016-03-28 → 2016-04-14

Ta Oi fire, 28 March 2016 Ta Oi, Samuoi

Out · last detection 14 Apr 2016, 18:30 UTC

The fire started on 28 March 2016 in Ta Oi, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,634 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 8th largest in Salavan since 2016 (of 38 with a page). Number 45 in Laos in 2016, of 156.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Samuoi · 2026 Nong · 2026 Nong · 2026 Ta Oi · 2026

Burnt area: 3,634ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 18days; 28 Mar 2016 – 14 Apr 2016
Municipalities hit: 2; districts
Started on: 28 Mar; 2016
Heat detections: 131; in a single hotspot: 232 MW
Danger at start: 6; Low · FWI index
Average daily power: 299MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Mar14 Apr

Play back 14 Apr 2016

How it evolved, day by day

28 Mar 30 Mar 2 Apr 4 Apr 6 Apr 9 Apr 11 Apr 13 Apr

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

The weather it burned in

33°high

54km/h · peak gust

36%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.0 mm on 18 Apr.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 2.3% of the area of London (36 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

Ta Oi where it started

2,059 ha

0.8 %
Samuoi

1,598 ha

2.5 %

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)
28 Mar	23.4 °C	56 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
29 Mar	27.1 °C	50 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
30 Mar	28.9 °C	46 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
31 Mar	27.8 °C	56 %	23 km/h	0.4 mm	Low 10
1 Apr	29.3 °C	45 %	27 km/h	0.1 mm	Low 11
2 Apr	30.1 °C	45 %	24 km/h	2.6 mm	Very low 3
3 Apr	29.4 °C	50 %	34 km/h	3.2 mm	Very low 2
4 Apr	28.9 °C	51 %	34 km/h	0.3 mm	Low 7
5 Apr	30.1 °C	48 %	32 km/h	1.0 mm	Low 8
6 Apr	31.0 °C	42 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
7 Apr	31.1 °C	42 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
8 Apr	30.8 °C	41 %	18 km/h	0.6 mm	Moderate 12
9 Apr	29.5 °C	49 %	28 km/h	0.7 mm	Low 11
10 Apr	31.6 °C	46 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
11 Apr	31.9 °C	41 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
12 Apr	30.9 °C	46 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
13 Apr	32.6 °C	39 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
14 Apr	33.3 °C	36 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
15 Apr after	34.0 °C	32 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
16 Apr after	33.8 °C	33 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
17 Apr after	33.0 °C	38 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
18 Apr after	24.6 °C	70 %	35 km/h	4.0 mm	Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 21 Mar 2016

After · 21 Apr 2016

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.

Detections table · 131Every 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 Ta Oi fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 March 2016 to 14 April 2016 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 30 March 2016 to 7 April 2016.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,634 hectares (36.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ta Oi (2,059 ha, 0.8 %); Samuoi (1,598 ha, 2.5 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 33.3 °C, humidity dropped to 36 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 22, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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

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?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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 30 March 2016 to 7 April 2016. 131 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.

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