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Botum Sakor fire, December 2023 Botum Sakor

Out · last detection 8 Jan 2024, 06:28 UTC

The fire started on 7 December 2023 in Botum Sakor, Cambodia, and satellites saw it burning for 33 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,401 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

Number 3 in Cambodia in 2023, of 25.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Botum Sakor · 2022

Burnt area
5,401ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
33days
7 Dec 2023 – 8 Jan 2024
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
7 Dec
2023
Heat detections
437
in a single hotspot: 226 MW
Danger at start
0
Very low · FWI index
Average daily power
288MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Dec8 Jan
8 Jan 2024

How it evolved, day by day

7 Dec 2023 · 4 MW · 1 10 Dec 2023 · 7 MW · 3 11 Dec 2023 · 65 MW · 5 12 Dec 2023 · 41 MW · 6 13 Dec 2023 · 158 MW · 12 14 Dec 2023 · 78 MW · 8 16 Dec 2023 · 47 MW · 8 17 Dec 2023 · 349 MW · 24 18 Dec 2023 · 585 MW · 26 19 Dec 2023 · 2,120 MW · 66 20 Dec 2023 · 1,146 MW · 56 21 Dec 2023 · 573 MW · 53 22 Dec 2023 · 976 MW · 36 23 Dec 2023 · 16 MW · 6 25 Dec 2023 · 592 MW · 22 26 Dec 2023 · 165 MW · 13 27 Dec 2023 · 276 MW · 6 28 Dec 2023 · 48 MW · 7 29 Dec 2023 · 188 MW · 16 30 Dec 2023 · 52 MW · 8 31 Dec 2023 · 7 MW · 2 1 Jan 2024 · 26 MW · 6 2 Jan 2024 · 390 MW · 14 3 Jan 2024 · 55 MW · 12 4 Jan 2024 · 41 MW · 11 5 Jan 2024 · 4 MW · 2 7 Jan 2024 · 52 MW · 7 8 Jan 2024 · 6 MW · 1
7 Dec 13 Dec 18 Dec 19 Dec 22 Dec 27 Dec 31 Dec 4 Jan

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
48km/h · peak gust
50%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.2 mm on 11 Jan.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.4% of the area of London (54 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Botum Sakor where it started
    5,434 ha reached on 7 Dec
    5.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area0.14 ha
Residents≈ 30

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.14 hectares of built-up land and about 30 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
7 Dec 30.2 °C 69 % 24 km/h 3.5 mm Very low 0
8 Dec 29.7 °C 72 % 16 km/h 0.8 mm Very low 0
9 Dec 30.5 °C 66 % 16 km/h 0.3 mm Very low 1
10 Dec 30.3 °C 70 % 19 km/h 0.6 mm Very low 2
11 Dec 30.4 °C 69 % 19 km/h 0.2 mm Very low 2
12 Dec 30.0 °C 76 % 27 km/h 1.4 mm Very low 1
13 Dec 30.6 °C 64 % 20 km/h 0.5 mm Very low 2
14 Dec 31.3 °C 60 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
15 Dec 30.8 °C 68 % 21 km/h 0.8 mm Very low 3
16 Dec 30.2 °C 77 % 29 km/h 2.2 mm Very low 1
17 Dec 30.6 °C 70 % 25 km/h 1.4 mm Very low 1
18 Dec 31.5 °C 58 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm Very low 5
19 Dec 31.9 °C 52 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
20 Dec 32.4 °C 50 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
21 Dec 31.6 °C 54 % 36 km/h 0.3 mm Low 10
22 Dec 29.6 °C 51 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
23 Dec 28.7 °C 52 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
24 Dec 27.6 °C 62 % 43 km/h 2.8 mm Very low 3
25 Dec 28.8 °C 54 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
26 Dec 29.2 °C 55 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
27 Dec 30.3 °C 54 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
28 Dec 30.3 °C 59 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
29 Dec 29.9 °C 65 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
30 Dec 29.9 °C 70 % 24 km/h 6.3 mm Very low 1
31 Dec 30.8 °C 63 % 19 km/h 0.3 mm Very low 2
1 Jan 29.0 °C 77 % 25 km/h 2.5 mm Very low 1
2 Jan 30.2 °C 66 % 20 km/h 0.3 mm Very low 2
3 Jan 30.5 °C 64 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
4 Jan 29.6 °C 62 % 24 km/h 0.3 mm Low 6
5 Jan 30.4 °C 54 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
6 Jan 29.9 °C 59 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
7 Jan 30.2 °C 61 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
8 Jan 29.6 °C 69 % 21 km/h 0.3 mm Low 8
9 Jan after 29.0 °C 72 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
10 Jan after 29.0 °C 75 % 23 km/h 0.7 mm Very low 4
11 Jan after 29.9 °C 69 % 24 km/h 2.2 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Nov 2023
After · 15 Jan 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 20 December 2023 the air beside the fire reached 28 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak28 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1041 µg/m³
Optical depth0.71
89101112131415161718192021222324252627282930311234
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 · 437Every 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 Botum Sakor fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 7 December 2023 to 8 January 2024 (33 days). The perimeter dates it from 10 December 2023 to 1 January 2024.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,401 hectares (54.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Botum Sakor (5,434 ha, 5.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.4 °C, humidity dropped to 50 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 14, 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

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 1 January 2024 → 8 January 2024.
  2. Start date: 10 December 2023 → 7 December 2023.

RSS Changes to this page

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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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 10 December 2023 to 1 January 2024. 437 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.