Kaev Seima fire, 14 January 2026 Kaev Seima
The fire started on 14 January 2026 in Kaev Seima, Cambodia, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,507 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 13th largest in Mondulkiri since 2016 (of 112 with a page). Number 20 in Cambodia in 2026, of 118.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 6,507ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 22days
- 14 Jan 2026 – 4 Feb 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 14 Jan
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 116
- in a single hotspot: 62 MW
- Danger at start
- 21
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 70MW
- 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 34 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
85% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,058 ha in 2016, 2,387 ha in 2017, 883 ha in 2018, 386 ha in 2019, 408 ha in 2021, 1,849 ha in 2022, 1,986 ha in 2023, 2,293 ha in 2024, 1,167 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,536 ha that had burned before.
- 2,250 ha Kaev Seima fire, February 2017 2,888 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,986 ha Kaev Seima fire, January 2023 2,466 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,058 ha Kaev Seima fire, January 2016 4,699 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 956 ha Kaev Seima fire, December 2024 2,951 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 635 ha Kaev Seima fire, December 2023 2,439 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 408 ha Kaev Seima fire, January 2021 2,094 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 386 ha Kaev Seima fire, December 2019 2,946 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
-
Kaev Seima where it started6,549 ha reached on 14 Jan2.3 %
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 was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 Jan | 32.7 °C | 38 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 15 Jan | 32.9 °C | 40 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 21 |
| 16 Jan | 32.9 °C | 37 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 17 Jan | 32.6 °C | 40 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 18 Jan | 32.0 °C | 42 % | 24 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 19 Jan | 33.1 °C | 33 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 20 Jan | 32.3 °C | 35 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 21 Jan | 31.8 °C | 32 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 22 Jan | 31.0 °C | 40 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 23 Jan | 30.8 °C | 40 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 24 Jan | 31.9 °C | 37 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 25 Jan | 32.5 °C | 33 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 26 Jan | 32.4 °C | 34 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 27 Jan | 32.5 °C | 35 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 28 Jan | 31.7 °C | 40 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 29 Jan | 33.2 °C | 31 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 30 Jan | 32.7 °C | 39 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 31 Jan | 32.5 °C | 37 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 1 Feb | 32.6 °C | 32 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 2 Feb | 32.5 °C | 38 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 3 Feb | 31.7 °C | 47 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 4 Feb | 32.8 °C | 42 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 5 Feb after | 33.4 °C | 44 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 6 Feb after | 33.4 °C | 43 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 7 Feb after | 32.3 °C | 48 % | 29 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 28 |
| 8 Feb after | 33.5 °C | 33 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 9 Feb after | 34.1 °C | 34 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 10 Feb after | 34.9 °C | 36 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 11 Feb after | 29.3 °C | 60 % | 33 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 24 |
| 12 Feb after | 34.5 °C | 37 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 13 Feb after | 35.8 °C | 28 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 14 Feb after | 36.0 °C | 27 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
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 30 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 36 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.3 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 · 116Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 36,542 haSnuol14 January 2016 · 87 days · 13 km away
- 15,165 haKaev Seima10 January 2026 · 33 days · 17 km away
- 6,724 haKaev Seima14 January 2026 · 22 days · 18 km away
- 24,939 haPech Chreada11 January 2016 · 39 days · 19 km away
- 6,236 haKaev Seima4 February 2017 · 22 days · 21 km away
- 5,511 haKaev Seima29 December 2024 · 21 days · 33 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kaev Seima fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 January 2026 to 4 February 2026 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 17 January 2026 to 29 January 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,507 hectares (65.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Kaev Seima (6,549 ha, 2.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.2 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 29 January 2026 → 4 February 2026.
- Start date: 17 January 2026 → 14 January 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.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 17 January 2026 to 29 January 2026. 116 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.