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KH · Cambodia · –

Koun Mom fire, 26 January 2019 Koun Mom

Out · last detection 3 Feb 2019, 05:38 UTC

The fire started on 26 January 2019 in Koun Mom, Cambodia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,300 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 41th largest in Ratanakiri since 2016 (of 62 with a page). Number 49 in Cambodia in 2019, of 65.

Burnt area
2,300ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
26 Jan 2019 – 3 Feb 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
26 Jan
2019
Heat detections
78
in a single hotspot: 33 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
33MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Jan3 Feb
3 Feb 2019

How it evolved, day by day

26 Jan 2019 · 0 MW · 1 27 Jan 2019 · 43 MW · 9 28 Jan 2019 · 75 MW · 46 29 Jan 2019 · 86 MW · 15 31 Jan 2019 · 1 MW · 1 1 Feb 2019 · 18 MW · 4 3 Feb 2019 · 10 MW · 2
26 Jan 29 Jan 3 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
41km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 29 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

57% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,325 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.5% of the area of London (23 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
    2,316 ha reached on 26 Jan
    1.1 %

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)
26 Jan 34.8 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
27 Jan 34.5 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Jan 34.8 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
29 Jan 35.0 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Jan 35.6 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 Jan 35.8 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Feb 35.6 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Feb 36.4 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
3 Feb 37.4 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Feb after 36.5 °C 35 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Feb after 36.7 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
6 Feb after 36.7 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
7 Feb after 37.3 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Feb after 38.5 °C 32 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Feb after 38.0 °C 31 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Feb after 38.5 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Feb after 38.8 °C 14 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
12 Feb after 37.3 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
13 Feb after 37.3 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 40.9, a minimum humidity of 26% and 29 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 22.

FWI at the start 40.9
Minimum humidity 26 %
Days without rain 29
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Ou Ya Dav fire, February 2019
2,386 ha 23 days FWI 42.7 Min. humidity 26 % 60 km away, in 2019

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

22 days
median duration
2,414 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
4.1 mm
rain at the end (median; 11 of 22 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (2,300 ha against a median of 2,414 ha) and lasted 9 days, against 22 days.

In 11 of 22, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 4.1 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
41km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 3 Feb, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 11 of 22, with a median of 4.1 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Jan 2019
After · 10 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 · 78Every 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?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 January 2019 and 3 February 2019: 9 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 2,300 hectares (23.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Koun Mom (2,316 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 22. Their median duration was 22 days and their median area 2,414 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In 11 of 22, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 4.1 mm.

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.

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
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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 78 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.