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Aek Phnum fire, April 2016 Aek Phnum

Out · last detection 25 Apr 2016, 05:51 UTC

The fire started on 5 April 2016 in Aek Phnum, Cambodia, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,581 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 14th largest in Battambang since 2016 (of 26 with a page). Number 37 in Cambodia in 2016, of 116.

Burnt area
3,581ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
21days
5 Apr 2016 – 25 Apr 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
5 Apr
2016
Heat detections
193
in a single hotspot: 238 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Apr 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Apr25 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

567810111213141516171819202122232425

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

The weather it burned in

43°high
38km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.9 mm on 29 Apr.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Aek Phnum where it started
    3,603 ha reached on 5 Apr
    3.4 %

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.

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)
5 Apr 39.6 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
6 Apr 42.0 °C 25 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Apr 41.4 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 Apr 40.1 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Apr 40.5 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Apr 42.5 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Apr 42.7 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
12 Apr 42.4 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
13 Apr 42.7 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 Apr 42.1 °C 29 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Apr 42.8 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Apr 42.2 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Apr 41.7 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Apr 42.2 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Apr 39.5 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 40
20 Apr 38.6 °C 43 % 23 km/h 1.2 mm High 22
21 Apr 40.4 °C 31 % 25 km/h 0.5 mm High 34
22 Apr 39.6 °C 39 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
23 Apr 41.6 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Apr 41.8 °C 23 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
25 Apr 41.3 °C 30 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Apr after 42.1 °C 31 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
27 Apr after 41.8 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
28 Apr after 41.7 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.8 mm High 34
29 Apr after 37.4 °C 49 % 27 km/h 8.9 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Mar 2016
After · 2 May 2016

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 · 193Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Cambodia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Aek Phnum fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 April 2016 and 25 April 2016: 21 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 3,581 hectares (35.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Aek Phnum (3,603 ha, 3.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 42.8 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Cambodia (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.

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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 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)). 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.