Kuleaen fire, December 2019 Kuleaen
The fire started on 25 December 2019 in Kuleaen, Cambodia, and satellites saw it burning for 28 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,929 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 38th largest in Preah Vihear since 2016 (of 97 with a page). Number 36 in Cambodia in 2019, of 66.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 2,929ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 28days
- 25 Dec 2019 – 21 Jan 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 25 Dec
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 187
- in a single hotspot: 31 MW
- Danger at start
- 19
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 43MW
- 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 48 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
24% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 22 ha in 2016, 27 ha in 2017, 861 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 699 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 started2,947 ha reached on 25 Dec1.3 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Jan | 32.4 °C | 47 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 2 Jan | 32.5 °C | 47 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 3 Jan | 32.8 °C | 48 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 4 Jan | 32.6 °C | 42 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 5 Jan | 32.3 °C | 49 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 6 Jan | 32.4 °C | 46 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 7 Jan | 33.2 °C | 50 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 8 Jan | 33.6 °C | 47 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 9 Jan | 33.7 °C | 51 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 10 Jan | 34.2 °C | 46 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 11 Jan | 33.2 °C | 49 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 12 Jan | 33.0 °C | 47 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 13 Jan | 33.1 °C | 40 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 14 Jan | 32.8 °C | 39 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 15 Jan | 32.8 °C | 43 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 16 Jan | 33.6 °C | 43 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 17 Jan | 32.9 °C | 45 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 18 Jan | 33.0 °C | 46 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 19 Jan | 32.4 °C | 47 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 20 Jan | 32.8 °C | 43 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 21 Jan | 33.4 °C | 43 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 22 Jan after | 34.7 °C | 38 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 23 Jan after | 35.3 °C | 38 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 24 Jan after | 34.1 °C | 46 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
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 · 187Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 8,281 haKuleaen31 January 2026 · 27 days · 9 km away
- 11,114 haSvay Leu18 December 2019 · 31 days · 17 km away
- 12,152 haChoam Ksant7 January 2019 · 50 days · 29 km away
- 7,677 haTrapeang PrasatApril 2016 · 25 days · 36 km away
- 21,046 haChoam Ksant1 February 2026 · 28 days · 37 km away
- 8,434 haAnlong VeaengFebruary 2019 · 17 days · 37 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 25 December 2019 to 21 January 2020 (28 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 January 2020 to 14 January 2020.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,929 hectares (29.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Kuleaen (2,947 ha, 1.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.2 °C, humidity dropped to 39 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 22, 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 14 January 2020 → 21 January 2020.
- Start date: 1 January 2020 → 25 December 2019.
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 1 January 2020 to 14 January 2020. 187 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.