Vilabuly fire, 18 March 2024 Vilabuly
The fire started on 18 March 2024 in Vilabuly, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,546 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 55th largest in Savannakhet since 2016 (of 96 with a page). Number 64 in Laos in 2024, of 109.
- Burnt area
- 2,546ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 14days
- 18 Mar 2024 – 31 Mar 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 18 Mar
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 74
- in a single hotspot: 173 MW
- Energy released
- 1.5GW
- sum of detected power
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.
This area had burned before
95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,351 ha in 2019, 1,306 ha in 2020, 1,574 ha in 2021, 2,807 ha in 2022, 2,976 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,409 ha that had burned before.
- 2,807 ha Vilabuly fire, March 2022 8,618 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,081 ha Vilabuly fire, February 2023 7,158 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,574 ha Vilabuly fire, March 2021 11,672 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,306 ha Vilabuly fire, February 2020 4,038 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Vilabuly where it started2,560 ha reached on 18 Mar1.4 %
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.
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 March 2024 the air beside the fire reached 78 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 55: 3.7 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 · 74Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 8,618 haVilabuly3 March 2022 · 13 days · 1 km away
- 7,158 haVilabulyFebruary 2023 · 32 days · 2 km away
- 11,672 haVilabuly9 March 2021 · 22 days · 6 km away
- 7,241 haVilabuly24 March 2026 · 25 days · 21 km away
- 11,085 haXaybuathong25 February 2020 · 26 days · 34 km away
- 6,683 haXaybuathong9 March 2021 · 12 days · 36 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 18 March 2024 to 31 March 2024 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 March 2024 to 25 March 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,546 hectares (25.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Vilabuly (2,560 ha, 1.4 %).
- 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
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.