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Bakan fire, April 2024 Moung Ruessei, Bakan

Out · last detection 6 May 2024, 18:31 UTC

The fire started on 25 April 2024 in Bakan, Cambodia, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,373 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 3th largest in Pursat since 2016 (of 33 with a page). Number 8 in Cambodia in 2024, of 41.

Burnt area
5,373ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
25 Apr 2024 – 6 May 2024
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
25 Apr
2024
Heat detections
292
in a single hotspot: 68 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 May 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Apr6 May

How it evolved, day by day

2526282930123456

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
31km/h · peak gust
39%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.2 mm on 7 May.

This area had burned before

66% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 544 ha in 2016, 2,777 ha in 2019, 1,161 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,555 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Moung Ruessei
    2,898 ha reached on 20 Apr
    2.0 %
  2. Bakan where it started
    2,510 ha reached on 19 Apr
    1.6 %

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)
25 Apr 37.6 °C 46 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
26 Apr 37.9 °C 44 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
27 Apr 38.0 °C 46 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Apr 37.4 °C 50 % 31 km/h 0.4 mm High 36
29 Apr 38.2 °C 43 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Apr 38.0 °C 48 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
1 May 38.3 °C 39 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
2 May 37.9 °C 43 % 25 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
3 May 36.7 °C 50 % 27 km/h 0.5 mm High 31
4 May 36.2 °C 50 % 27 km/h 0.5 mm High 32
5 May 36.1 °C 50 % 29 km/h 0.6 mm High 26
6 May 36.2 °C 48 % 30 km/h 0.3 mm High 27
7 May after 32.1 °C 67 % 25 km/h 4.2 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Apr 2024
After · 13 May 2024

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 · Copernicus

On 3 May 2024 the air beside the fire reached 40 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 31: 2.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak40 µg/m³
Days over the guideline12 days
PM1061 µg/m³
Optical depth1.30
2324252627282930123456789
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 292Every 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 Bakan fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 April 2024 and 6 May 2024: 12 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 5,373 hectares (53.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Moung Ruessei (2,898 ha, 2.0 %); Bakan (2,510 ha, 1.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 39 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class 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.