How long did the Chetr Borei fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 24 December 2021 to 15 January 2022 (23 days). The perimeter dates it from 29 December 2021 to 8 January 2022.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 11,261 hectares (112.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Chetr Borei (11,337 ha, 7.7 %); Sambour (0 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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.

KH · Cambodia · 2021-12-24 → 2022-01-15

Chetr Borei fire, 24 December 2021 Chetr Borei, Sambour

Out · last detection 15 Jan 2022, 18:18 UTC

The fire started on 24 December 2021 in Chetr Borei, Cambodia, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,261 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 10th largest in Kratie since 2016 (of 80 with a page). Number 4 in Cambodia in 2021, of 71.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Chetr Borei · 2019 Chetr Borei · 2019 Chetr Borei · 2017 Sambour · 2026

Burnt area: 11,261ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 23days; 24 Dec 2021 – 15 Jan 2022
Municipalities hit: 2; districts
Started on: 24 Dec; 2021
Heat detections: 701; in a single hotspot: 50 MW
Danger at start: 14; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 240MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Dec15 Jan

Play back 15 Jan 2022

How it evolved, day by day

24 Dec 29 Dec 31 Dec 1 Jan 4 Jan 7 Jan 10 Jan 13 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

36°high

59km/h · peak gust

25%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

50% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,369 ha in 2017, 5,082 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,638 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 7.1% of the area of London (113 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

Chetr Borei where it started

11,337 ha reached on 24 Dec

7.7 %
Sambour

0 ha reached on 2 Jan

0.0 %

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 2020

Built-up area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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.

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)
24 Dec	32.9 °C	44 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
25 Dec	33.7 °C	43 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
26 Dec	34.0 °C	42 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
27 Dec	33.8 °C	46 %	44 km/h	2.0 mm	Moderate 12
28 Dec	33.3 °C	44 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
29 Dec	33.4 °C	40 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
30 Dec	33.3 °C	33 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
31 Dec	33.2 °C	35 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
1 Jan	33.3 °C	36 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
2 Jan	31.9 °C	42 %	59 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
3 Jan	33.5 °C	39 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
4 Jan	34.9 °C	37 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
5 Jan	34.1 °C	40 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
6 Jan	34.7 °C	36 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
7 Jan	35.0 °C	34 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
8 Jan	35.1 °C	31 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
9 Jan	35.4 °C	34 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
10 Jan	35.5 °C	33 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
11 Jan	35.0 °C	30 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
12 Jan	35.0 °C	29 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
13 Jan	33.8 °C	31 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
14 Jan	34.2 °C	25 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
15 Jan	34.3 °C	27 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
16 Jan after	34.1 °C	32 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
17 Jan after	33.7 °C	36 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
18 Jan after	34.5 °C	32 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
19 Jan after	33.9 °C	32 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
20 Jan after	34.5 °C	32 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
21 Jan after	33.1 °C	38 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
22 Jan after	34.0 °C	43 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
23 Jan after	32.2 °C	52 %	25 km/h	0.5 mm	High 22
24 Jan after	33.8 °C	46 %	21 km/h	0.9 mm	Moderate 16
25 Jan after	35.0 °C	39 %	20 km/h	0.2 mm	High 23

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 17 Dec 2021

After · 22 Jan 2022

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.

Detections table · 701Every 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

13,299 haSambour7 January 2026 · 30 days · 23 km away

All fires in Cambodia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Chetr Borei fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 24 December 2021 to 15 January 2022 (23 days). The perimeter dates it from 29 December 2021 to 8 January 2022.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 11,261 hectares (112.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Chetr Borei (11,337 ha, 7.7 %); Sambour (0 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

27 October 2026 Last day with fire: 8 January 2022 → 15 January 2022.
27 October 2026 Start date: 29 December 2021 → 24 December 2021.

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.

Report an error

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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 29 December 2021 to 8 January 2022. 701 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 2020, 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.

Where it burned