Vilabuly fire, February 2019 Vilabuly
The fire started on 28 February 2019 in Vilabuly, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,517 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 56th largest in Savannakhet since 2016 (of 95 with a page). Number 80 in Laos in 2019, of 126.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 2,517ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 26days
- 28 Feb 2019 – 25 Mar 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 28 Feb
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 118
- in a single hotspot: 115 MW
- Danger at start
- 24
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 112MW
- 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 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 29 Mar.
This area had burned before
48% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 918 ha in 2016, 317 ha in 2017.
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
-
Vilabuly where it started2,532 ha reached on 28 Feb1.4 %
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.
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 Feb | 34.5 °C | 38 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 1 Mar | 36.4 °C | 35 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 2 Mar | 34.7 °C | 38 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 3 Mar | 33.4 °C | 45 % | 33 km/h | 0.6 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 4 Mar | 32.0 °C | 51 % | 44 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 23 |
| 5 Mar | 32.2 °C | 54 % | 47 km/h | 1.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 6 Mar | 35.1 °C | 41 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 7 Mar | 35.9 °C | 33 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 8 Mar | 34.5 °C | 35 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 9 Mar | 34.9 °C | 34 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 10 Mar | 35.3 °C | 34 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 11 Mar | 33.4 °C | 39 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 12 Mar | 33.2 °C | 40 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 13 Mar | 35.3 °C | 30 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 14 Mar | 34.3 °C | 36 % | 32 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 31 |
| 15 Mar | 30.7 °C | 61 % | 45 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 23 |
| 16 Mar | 31.1 °C | 56 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 17 Mar | 33.6 °C | 44 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 18 Mar | 34.1 °C | 42 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 19 Mar | 35.6 °C | 36 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 20 Mar | 35.1 °C | 37 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 21 Mar | 36.5 °C | 34 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 22 Mar | 35.6 °C | 38 % | 33 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 30 |
| 23 Mar | 35.9 °C | 43 % | 42 km/h | 4.6 mm | Low 11 |
| 24 Mar | 29.1 °C | 61 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 25 Mar | 30.7 °C | 55 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 26 Mar after | 33.3 °C | 47 % | 33 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 27 Mar after | 36.4 °C | 37 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 28 Mar after | 35.2 °C | 40 % | 38 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 27 |
| 29 Mar after | 34.6 °C | 48 % | 42 km/h | 1.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
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 · 118Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 11,672 haVilabuly9 March 2021 · 22 days · 4 km away
- 8,618 haVilabuly1 March 2022 · 15 days · 9 km away
- 7,158 haVilabulyFebruary 2023 · 32 days · 9 km away
- 7,241 haVilabuly24 March 2026 · 25 days · 12 km away
- 11,085 haXaybuathong25 February 2020 · 26 days · 32 km away
- 6,683 haXaybuathong9 March 2021 · 12 days · 33 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Vilabuly fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 February 2019 to 25 March 2019 (26 days). The perimeter dates it from 7 March 2019 to 19 March 2019.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,517 hectares (25.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Vilabuly (2,532 ha, 1.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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 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 7 March 2019 to 19 March 2019. 118 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.