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Lumphat fire, January 2018 Lumphat

Out · last detection 3 Feb 2018, 18:55 UTC

The fire started on 25 January 2018 in Lumphat, Cambodia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,837 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 32th largest in Ratanakiri since 2016 (of 81 with a page). Number 9 in Cambodia in 2018, of 19.

Burnt area
2,837ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
25 Jan 2018 – 2 Feb 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
25 Jan
2018
Heat detections
227
in a single hotspot: 32 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

3 Feb 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Jan2 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

252627293031123

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
28%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

80% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,302 ha in 2016, 2,026 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,272 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Lumphat where it started
    2,855 ha reached on 25 Jan
    1.6 %

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)
25 Jan 35.4 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
26 Jan 35.5 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
27 Jan 35.7 °C 40 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
28 Jan 36.8 °C 39 % 28 km/h 0.3 mm High 25
29 Jan 34.8 °C 45 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
30 Jan 34.6 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
31 Jan 36.0 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
1 Feb 34.0 °C 30 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Feb 34.0 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Feb after 32.5 °C 29 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 Feb after 32.6 °C 26 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
5 Feb after 32.2 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Feb after 30.5 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Feb after 31.4 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Feb after 31.9 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Feb after 33.5 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
10 Feb after 35.0 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Feb after 35.6 °C 25 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Feb after 34.4 °C 29 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Jan 2018
After · 9 Feb 2018

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 · 227Every 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 25 January 2018 and 2 February 2018: 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 2,837 hectares (28.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lumphat (2,855 ha, 1.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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.