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Koun Mom fire, 8 January 2019 Koun Mom

Out · last detection 10 Feb 2019, 17:40 UTC

The fire started on 8 January 2019 in Koun Mom, Cambodia, and satellites saw it burning for 34 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,843 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 14th largest in Ratanakiri since 2016 (of 79 with a page). Number 18 in Cambodia in 2019, of 66.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Koun Mom · 2017Koun Mom · 2016Koun Mom · 2017Koun Mom · 2016

Burnt area
3,843ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
34days
8 Jan 2019 – 10 Feb 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
8 Jan
2019
Heat detections
335
in a single hotspot: 39 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Average daily power
51MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Jan10 Feb
10 Feb 2019

How it evolved, day by day

9 Jan 2019 · 50 MW · 9 10 Jan 2019 · 18 MW · 9 11 Jan 2019 · 42 MW · 10 12 Jan 2019 · 23 MW · 4 13 Jan 2019 · 48 MW · 7 14 Jan 2019 · 42 MW · 8 15 Jan 2019 · 9 MW · 3 17 Jan 2019 · 11 MW · 2 18 Jan 2019 · 18 MW · 14 19 Jan 2019 · 29 MW · 24 20 Jan 2019 · 53 MW · 8 22 Jan 2019 · 7 MW · 6 23 Jan 2019 · 22 MW · 5 24 Jan 2019 · 14 MW · 5 25 Jan 2019 · 238 MW · 33 26 Jan 2019 · 34 MW · 15 27 Jan 2019 · 27 MW · 8 28 Jan 2019 · 17 MW · 11 29 Jan 2019 · 58 MW · 21 30 Jan 2019 · 220 MW · 18 31 Jan 2019 · 108 MW · 30 1 Feb 2019 · 294 MW · 49 2 Feb 2019 · 23 MW · 8 3 Feb 2019 · 50 MW · 7 4 Feb 2019 · 1 MW · 1 5 Feb 2019 · 7 MW · 1 6 Feb 2019 · 15 MW · 4 8 Feb 2019 · 11 MW · 3 9 Feb 2019 · 7 MW · 3 10 Feb 2019 · 48 MW · 9
9 Jan 14 Jan 20 Jan 26 Jan 31 Jan 1 Feb 5 Feb

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

37°high
43km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

79% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,651 ha in 2016, 2,901 ha in 2017, 523 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,032 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.4% of the area of London (38 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

  1. Koun Mom where it started
    3,869 ha reached on 9 Jan
    1.8 %

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)
15 Jan 36.6 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Jan 35.2 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
17 Jan 34.1 °C 39 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
18 Jan 35.1 °C 27 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Jan 35.8 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 Jan 36.8 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Jan 35.8 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
22 Jan 35.0 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Jan 34.2 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
24 Jan 34.0 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
25 Jan 34.1 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
26 Jan 34.8 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Jan 34.5 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
28 Jan 34.8 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
29 Jan 35.0 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Jan 35.6 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Jan 35.8 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Feb 35.6 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Feb 36.4 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 Feb 37.4 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
4 Feb 36.5 °C 35 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 Feb 36.7 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
6 Feb 36.7 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Feb 37.3 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Feb 38.5 °C 32 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Feb 38.0 °C 31 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Feb 38.5 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Feb after 38.8 °C 14 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
12 Feb after 37.3 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
13 Feb after 37.3 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Jan 2019
After · 17 Feb 2019

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 · 335Every 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 Koun Mom fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 8 January 2019 to 10 February 2019 (34 days). The perimeter dates it from 15 January 2019 to 3 February 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,843 hectares (38.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Koun Mom (3,869 ha, 1.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.
  1. Last day with fire: 3 February 2019 → 10 February 2019.
  2. Start date: 15 January 2019 → 8 January 2019.

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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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 15 January 2019 to 3 February 2019. 335 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.