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Lumphat fire, 30 January 2016 Lumphat

Out · last detection 10 Feb 2016, 18:31 UTC

The fire started on 30 January 2016 in Lumphat, Cambodia, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,672 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 10th largest in Ratanakiri since 2016 (of 81 with a page). Number 28 in Cambodia in 2016, of 116.

Burnt area
4,672ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
30 Jan 2016 – 9 Feb 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
30 Jan
2016
Heat detections
396
in a single hotspot: 172 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Feb 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Jan9 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

303112345678910

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
46km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 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.

What happened to each town

  1. Lumphat where it started
    4,701 ha reached on 23 Jan
    2.6 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre 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)
30 Jan 36.5 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
31 Jan 36.3 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
1 Feb 37.2 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Feb 35.4 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
3 Feb 34.9 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
4 Feb 33.7 °C 39 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
5 Feb 34.0 °C 37 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Feb 33.2 °C 31 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Feb 29.1 °C 30 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
8 Feb 31.0 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Feb 33.5 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Feb after 35.5 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Feb after 36.5 °C 24 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Feb after 36.4 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Feb after 35.9 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
14 Feb after 37.2 °C 30 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
15 Feb after 38.7 °C 25 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Feb after 35.1 °C 33 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Feb after 35.0 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Feb after 34.8 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
19 Feb after 36.0 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Jan 2016
After · 16 Feb 2016

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 · 396Every 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 Lumphat fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 January 2016 and 9 February 2016: 11 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 4,672 hectares (46.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lumphat (4,701 ha, 2.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, 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

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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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.