How long did the Mongkol Borei fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 7 January 2026 to 29 January 2026 (23 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 January 2026 to 22 January 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,836 hectares (28.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mongkol Borei (2,041 ha, 2.5 %); Thma Koul (812 ha, 0.9 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, 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.

KH · Cambodia · 2026-01-07 → 2026-01-29

Mongkol Borei fire, January 2026 Mongkol Borei, Thma Koul

Out · last detection 29 Jan 2026, 06:34 UTC

The fire started on 7 January 2026 in Mongkol Borei, Cambodia, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,836 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 8th largest in Banteay Meanchey since 2016 (of 14 with a page). Number 60 in Cambodia in 2026, of 118.

The power measured by the satellite is low (25.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Aek Phnum · 2019 Mongkol Borei · 2025 Bavel · 2025 Ou Chrov · 2024

Burnt area: 2,836ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 23days; 7 Jan 2026 – 29 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; districts
Started on: 7 Jan; 2026
Heat detections: 73; in a single hotspot: 25 MW
Danger at start: 22; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 30MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Jan29 Jan

Play back 29 Jan 2026

How it evolved, day by day

7 Jan 13 Jan 14 Jan 16 Jan 20 Jan 24 Jan 29 Jan

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

35°high

33km/h · peak gust

32%lowest humidity

It had gone 31 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: 687 ha in 2020.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 1.8% of the area of London (28 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

Mongkol Borei where it started

2,041 ha reached on 7 Jan

2.5 %
Thma Koul

812 ha reached on 12 Jan

0.9 %

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 2025

Built-up area0.58 ha

Residents≈ 40

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.58 hectares of built-up land and about 40 residents (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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)
11 Jan	29.0 °C	38 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
12 Jan	30.5 °C	39 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
13 Jan	32.1 °C	37 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
14 Jan	33.0 °C	39 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
15 Jan	34.1 °C	37 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
16 Jan	33.9 °C	41 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
17 Jan	33.9 °C	44 %	20 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 21
18 Jan	34.3 °C	42 %	26 km/h	0.1 mm	High 22
19 Jan	33.9 °C	41 %	21 km/h	0.4 mm	High 22
20 Jan	35.3 °C	34 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
21 Jan	33.2 °C	39 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
22 Jan	32.2 °C	32 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
23 Jan	31.5 °C	36 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
24 Jan	31.6 °C	36 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
25 Jan	32.6 °C	36 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
26 Jan	32.8 °C	34 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
27 Jan	32.9 °C	34 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
28 Jan	32.5 °C	37 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
29 Jan	32.9 °C	36 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
30 Jan after	34.2 °C	35 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
31 Jan after	34.6 °C	34 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
1 Feb after	32.5 °C	37 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 31 Dec 2025

After · 5 Feb 2026

Before After

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 19 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 59 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 45: 3.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak59 µg/m³

Days over the guideline15 days

PM1060 µg/m³

Optical depth1.25

WHO 15

910111213141516171819202122232425

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 73Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Cambodia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mongkol Borei fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 7 January 2026 to 29 January 2026 (23 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 January 2026 to 22 January 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,836 hectares (28.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mongkol Borei (2,041 ha, 2.5 %); Thma Koul (812 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

RSS Changes to this page

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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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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 11 January 2026 to 22 January 2026. 73 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 2025, 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.

Where it burned