How long did the Kaoh Nheaek fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 January 2016 to 31 January 2016 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 January 2016 to 25 January 2016.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 12,908 hectares (129.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kaoh Nheaek (7,867 ha, 1.5 %); Pech Chreada (5,116 ha, 1.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 66 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 · 2016-01-14 → 2016-01-31

Kaoh Nheaek fire, 14 January 2016 Kaoh Nheaek, Pech Chreada

Out · last detection 31 Jan 2016, 05:46 UTC

The fire started on 14 January 2016 in Kaoh Nheaek, Cambodia, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,908 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 4th largest in Mondulkiri since 2016 (of 112 with a page). Number 7 in Cambodia in 2016, of 118.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Kaoh Nheaek · 2026 Kaoh Nheaek · 2020 Buon Don · 2026 Kaoh Nheaek · 2025

Burnt area: 12,908ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 18days; 14 Jan 2016 – 31 Jan 2016
Municipalities hit: 2; districts
Started on: 14 Jan; 2016
Heat detections: 368; in a single hotspot: 77 MW
Danger at start: 30; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 182MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Jan31 Jan

Play back 31 Jan 2016

How it evolved, day by day

14 Jan 17 Jan 20 Jan 22 Jan 24 Jan 26 Jan 30 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

66km/h · peak gust

29%lowest humidity

It had gone 23 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.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 8.2% of the area of London (129 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

Kaoh Nheaek where it started

7,867 ha reached on 14 Jan

1.5 %
Pech Chreada

5,116 ha reached on 14 Jan

1.3 %

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 2015

Built-up area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, 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)
14 Jan	36.2 °C	33 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
15 Jan	35.9 °C	36 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
16 Jan	29.0 °C	62 %	19 km/h	6.0 mm	Very low 2
17 Jan	34.1 °C	46 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
18 Jan	33.4 °C	49 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
19 Jan	34.5 °C	45 %	30 km/h	1.8 mm	Moderate 12
20 Jan	35.3 °C	37 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
21 Jan	36.0 °C	29 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
22 Jan	35.0 °C	34 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
23 Jan	35.0 °C	35 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
24 Jan	29.1 °C	45 %	62 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
25 Jan	26.6 °C	43 %	66 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
26 Jan	28.2 °C	46 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
27 Jan	30.8 °C	46 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
28 Jan	33.9 °C	44 %	32 km/h	0.4 mm	High 22
29 Jan	35.1 °C	44 %	26 km/h	0.2 mm	High 24
30 Jan	35.2 °C	38 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
31 Jan	35.3 °C	36 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
1 Feb after	36.0 °C	32 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
2 Feb after	31.8 °C	43 %	57 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
3 Feb after	31.4 °C	41 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
4 Feb after	32.1 °C	42 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
5 Feb after	30.7 °C	46 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
6 Feb after	29.7 °C	39 %	61 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
7 Feb after	27.3 °C	33 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
8 Feb after	28.9 °C	37 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
9 Feb after	31.5 °C	36 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
10 Feb after	34.8 °C	28 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 7 Jan 2016

After · 7 Feb 2016

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 · 368Every 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

All fires in Cambodia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kaoh Nheaek fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 January 2016 to 31 January 2016 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 January 2016 to 25 January 2016.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 12,908 hectares (129.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kaoh Nheaek (7,867 ha, 1.5 %); Pech Chreada (5,116 ha, 1.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 66 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: 25 January 2016 → 31 January 2016.
27 October 2026 Start date: 21 January 2016 → 14 January 2016.

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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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 21 January 2016 to 25 January 2016. 368 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 2015, 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