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Kaev Seima fire, 23 January 2016 Kaev Seima

Out · last detection 26 Jan 2016, 05:39 UTC

The fire started on 23 January 2016 in Kaev Seima, Cambodia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,699 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 26th largest in Mondulkiri since 2016 (of 111 with a page). Number 27 in Cambodia in 2016, of 116.

The power measured by the satellite is low (26.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
4,699ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
23 Jan 2016 – 26 Jan 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
23 Jan
2016
Heat detections
164
in a single hotspot: 26 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
573MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Jan 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jan26 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

23242526

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
73km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Kaev Seima where it started
    4,730 ha reached on 17 Jan
    1.7 %

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)
23 Jan 38.3 °C 28 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
24 Jan 32.3 °C 42 % 70 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
25 Jan 29.2 °C 40 % 73 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Jan 31.6 °C 40 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
27 Jan after 33.5 °C 42 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
28 Jan after 35.5 °C 43 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
29 Jan after 36.1 °C 40 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
30 Jan after 37.4 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
31 Jan after 37.1 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
1 Feb after 37.4 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Feb after 34.6 °C 39 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 Feb after 34.5 °C 39 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Feb after 34.9 °C 39 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
5 Feb after 34.1 °C 41 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Jan 2016
After · 2 Feb 2016

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 · 164Every 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 Kaev Seima fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 January 2016 and 26 January 2016: 4 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 4,699 hectares (47.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kaev Seima (4,730 ha, 1.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 73 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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

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.