How long did the Bavel fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 31 December 2025 and 10 January 2026: 11 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 3,773 hectares (37.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Bavel (3,797 ha, 3.9 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 32.1 °C, humidity dropped to 39 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 21, class Moderate.

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.

KH · Cambodia · 2025-12-31 → 2026-01-10

Bavel fire, December 2025 Bavel

Out · last detection 10 Jan 2026, 05:50 UTC

The fire started on 31 December 2025 in Bavel, Cambodia, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,773 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 12th largest in Battambang since 2016 (of 26 with a page). Number 12 in Cambodia in 2025, of 31.

Burnt area: 3,773ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 11days; 31 Dec 2025 – 10 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 31 Dec; 2025
Heat detections: 87; in a single hotspot: 37 MW
Danger at start: 16; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 500MW; sum of detected power

Play back 10 Jan 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Dec10 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

12345678910

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

The weather it burned in

32°high

39km/h · peak gust

39%lowest humidity

It had gone 25 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

55% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 52 ha in 2017, 2,041 ha in 2018, 1 ha in 2019.

1,658 ha Bavel fire, December 2018 3,457 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Bavel where it started

3,797 ha reached on 29 Dec

3.9 %

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)
31 Dec	31.6 °C	40 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
1 Jan	32.1 °C	39 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
2 Jan	31.2 °C	45 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
3 Jan	30.1 °C	43 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
4 Jan	30.2 °C	44 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
5 Jan	31.4 °C	43 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
6 Jan	30.5 °C	48 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
7 Jan	28.7 °C	48 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
8 Jan	27.7 °C	45 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
9 Jan	27.3 °C	45 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
10 Jan	28.2 °C	39 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
11 Jan after	28.3 °C	41 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
12 Jan after	29.9 °C	41 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
13 Jan after	31.6 °C	39 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
14 Jan after	32.3 °C	42 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
15 Jan after	33.3 °C	41 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
16 Jan after	32.8 °C	47 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
17 Jan after	33.2 °C	48 %	19 km/h	0.3 mm	Moderate 19
18 Jan after	33.3 °C	50 %	22 km/h	0.2 mm	Moderate 20
19 Jan after	33.3 °C	47 %	21 km/h	0.3 mm	Moderate 19
20 Jan after	34.9 °C	35 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 24 Dec 2025

After · 17 Jan 2026

Before After

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 11 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 38 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 29: 1.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak38 µg/m³

Days over the guideline9 days

PM1039 µg/m³

Optical depth0.43

WHO 15

29303112345678910111213

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 · 87Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Cambodia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Bavel fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 31 December 2025 and 10 January 2026: 11 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 3,773 hectares (37.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Bavel (3,797 ha, 3.9 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 32.1 °C, humidity dropped to 39 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 21, class Moderate.
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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

Where it burned