Xay fire, March 2021 Xay
The fire started on 26 March 2021 in Xay, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,121 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 213th largest in Oudomxay since 2016 (of 241 with a page). Number 71 in Laos in 2021, of 86.
- Burnt area
- 2,121ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 9days
- 26 Mar 2021 – 3 Apr 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 26 Mar
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 59
- in a single hotspot: 169 MW
- Energy released
- 2.6GW
- 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
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,710 ha in 2016, 938 ha in 2017, 1,809 ha in 2018, 1,003 ha in 2019, 1,102 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,115 ha that had burned before.
- 1,809 ha Xay fire, April 2018 31,315 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,710 ha Xay fire, April 2016 23,891 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,102 ha Xay fire, April 2020 3,975 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 732 ha Namor fire, March 2019 23,964 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 393 ha Xay fire, April 2017 2,837 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 118 ha Xay fire, March 2019 2,499 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 27 ha Xay fire, April 2017 3,920 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Xay where it started2,131 ha reached on 26 Mar1.0 %
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.
Detections table · 59Every 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 Xay fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 March 2021 and 3 April 2021: 9 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,121 hectares (21.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Xay (2,131 ha, 1.0 %).
- 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.