Chhaeb fire, 16 January 2026 Thala Barivat, Chhaeb
The fire started on 16 January 2026 in Chhaeb, Cambodia, and satellites saw it burning for 39 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 84,354 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the largest fire in Preah Vihear since 2016 (of 97 with a page). The largest in Cambodia in 2026, of 120.
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- Burnt area
- 84,354ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 39days
- 16 Jan 2026 – 23 Feb 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 16 Jan
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 2,921
- in a single hotspot: 109 MW
- Danger at start
- 22
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 494MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 13.8 mm on 27 Feb.
This area had burned before
74% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 12,236 ha in 2016, 21,143 ha in 2017, 2,409 ha in 2018, 11,528 ha in 2019, 15,393 ha in 2020, 35,028 ha in 2021, 25,106 ha in 2022, 6,833 ha in 2023, 26,822 ha in 2024, 13,771 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 62,384 ha that had burned before.
- 7,578 ha Thala Barivat fire, February 2017 10,550 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,103 ha Thala Barivat fire, February 2022 7,376 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,483 ha Chhaeb fire, February 2017 7,380 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,401 ha Thala Barivat fire, February 2022 3,084 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,325 ha Thala Barivat fire, February 2021 5,694 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,267 ha Thala Barivat fire, February 2024 5,228 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,034 ha Thala Barivat fire, February 2022 5,755 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,757 ha Thala Barivat fire, January 2020 4,915 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
47,029 ha18 %
-
Chhaeb where it started37,878 ha15 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 2.2 hectares of built-up land and about 600 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Jan | 33.6 °C | 38 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 17 Jan | 33.8 °C | 36 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 18 Jan | 32.3 °C | 44 % | 23 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 22 |
| 19 Jan | 32.8 °C | 35 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 20 Jan | 32.5 °C | 38 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 21 Jan | 32.0 °C | 33 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 22 Jan | 32.0 °C | 28 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 23 Jan | 31.4 °C | 35 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 24 Jan | 32.1 °C | 34 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 25 Jan | 32.1 °C | 34 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 26 Jan | 32.1 °C | 36 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 27 Jan | 32.3 °C | 35 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 28 Jan | 32.3 °C | 35 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 29 Jan | 32.9 °C | 35 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 30 Jan | 33.3 °C | 34 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 31 Jan | 33.3 °C | 34 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 1 Feb | 33.0 °C | 29 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 2 Feb | 32.8 °C | 34 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 3 Feb | 32.7 °C | 40 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 4 Feb | 33.8 °C | 36 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 5 Feb | 35.3 °C | 34 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 6 Feb | 36.0 °C | 31 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 7 Feb | 32.8 °C | 51 % | 30 km/h | 0.7 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 8 Feb | 31.8 °C | 43 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 9 Feb | 34.6 °C | 30 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 10 Feb | 35.0 °C | 29 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 11 Feb | 35.0 °C | 41 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 12 Feb | 36.0 °C | 33 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 13 Feb | 36.4 °C | 29 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 14 Feb | 36.6 °C | 28 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 15 Feb | 37.1 °C | 26 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 16 Feb | 37.2 °C | 26 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 17 Feb | 36.3 °C | 31 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 18 Feb | 36.9 °C | 30 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 19 Feb | 35.9 °C | 31 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 20 Feb | 36.0 °C | 30 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 21 Feb | 36.2 °C | 29 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 22 Feb | 37.0 °C | 33 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 23 Feb | 35.1 °C | 45 % | 31 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 30 |
| 24 Feb after | 36.3 °C | 39 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 25 Feb after | 36.1 °C | 38 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 26 Feb after | 35.5 °C | 40 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 27 Feb after | 27.5 °C | 74 % | 18 km/h | 13.8 mm | Very low 0 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 10 February 2026 the air beside the fire reached 124 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 50: 3.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 2,921Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Chhaeb fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 January 2026 and 23 February 2026: 39 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 84,354 hectares (843.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Thala Barivat (47,029 ha, 18 %); Chhaeb (37,878 ha, 15 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 9 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 2,921 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.
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.