Kuleaen fire, December 2018 Kuleaen, Svay Leu
The fire started on 29 December 2018 in Kuleaen, Cambodia, and satellites saw it burning for 35 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,401 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 26th largest in Preah Vihear since 2016 (of 97 with a page). Number 13 in Cambodia in 2018, of 28.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 3,401ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 35days
- 29 Dec 2018 – 1 Feb 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 29 Dec
- 2018
- Heat detections
- 314
- in a single hotspot: 32 MW
- Danger at start
- 15
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 46MW
- 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 23 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
71% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,372 ha in 2016, 1,459 ha in 2017, 242 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,424 ha that had burned before.
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
-
Kuleaen where it started2,672 ha reached on 29 Dec1.2 %
-
749 ha reached on 30 Dec0.4 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Jan | 32.9 °C | 43 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 5 Jan | 34.3 °C | 44 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 6 Jan | 34.5 °C | 44 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 7 Jan | 35.0 °C | 33 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 8 Jan | 35.2 °C | 36 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 21 |
| 9 Jan | 34.5 °C | 37 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 10 Jan | 34.2 °C | 38 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 11 Jan | 35.0 °C | 35 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 12 Jan | 34.9 °C | 37 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 13 Jan | 34.4 °C | 35 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 14 Jan | 34.1 °C | 36 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 15 Jan | 33.9 °C | 36 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 16 Jan | 33.9 °C | 40 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 17 Jan | 33.0 °C | 46 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 18 Jan | 33.1 °C | 40 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 19 Jan | 33.7 °C | 39 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 20 Jan | 33.5 °C | 40 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 21 Jan | 33.0 °C | 43 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 22 Jan | 32.7 °C | 43 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 23 Jan | 31.7 °C | 40 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 24 Jan | 32.1 °C | 34 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 25 Jan | 32.4 °C | 33 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 26 Jan | 31.7 °C | 35 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 27 Jan | 31.5 °C | 39 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 28 Jan | 32.0 °C | 38 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 29 Jan | 33.5 °C | 37 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 30 Jan | 33.9 °C | 40 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 31 Jan | 32.5 °C | 43 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 1 Feb | 33.9 °C | 36 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 2 Feb after | 34.6 °C | 37 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 3 Feb after | 35.2 °C | 38 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 4 Feb after | 35.3 °C | 40 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
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.
Detections table · 314Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 11,114 haSvay Leu18 December 2019 · 31 days · 9 km away
- 8,281 haKuleaen31 January 2026 · 27 days · 18 km away
- 4,651 haSvay Leu20 December 2019 · 24 days · 25 km away
- 7,677 haTrapeang PrasatApril 2016 · 25 days · 31 km away
- 8,434 haAnlong VeaengFebruary 2019 · 17 days · 32 km away
- 12,152 haChoam Ksant7 January 2019 · 50 days · 33 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kuleaen fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 December 2018 to 1 February 2019 (35 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 January 2019 to 25 January 2019.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,401 hectares (34.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kuleaen (2,672 ha, 1.2 %); Svay Leu (749 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, 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
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes 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
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 4 January 2019 to 25 January 2019. 314 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.
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.