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Pech Chreada fire, March 2016 Pech Chreada

Out · last detection 3 Apr 2016, 18:37 UTC

The fire started on 18 March 2016 in Pech Chreada, Cambodia, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,925 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 56th largest in Mondulkiri since 2016 (of 111 with a page). Number 57 in Cambodia in 2016, of 116.

Burnt area
2,925ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
18 Mar 2016 – 2 Apr 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
18 Mar
2016
Heat detections
168
in a single hotspot: 171 MW
Danger at start
25
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

3 Apr 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Mar2 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

1819202122232425262728293031123

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
51km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.5 mm on 5 Apr.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Pech Chreada where it started
    2,941 ha reached on 11 Mar
    0.8 %

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)
18 Mar 33.0 °C 37 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
19 Mar 33.7 °C 34 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
20 Mar 34.1 °C 33 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
21 Mar 33.4 °C 42 % 26 km/h 0.2 mm High 27
22 Mar 33.0 °C 41 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
23 Mar 32.7 °C 41 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
24 Mar 32.2 °C 46 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
25 Mar 30.3 °C 40 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Mar 30.6 °C 39 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Mar 28.3 °C 43 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
28 Mar 29.0 °C 43 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Mar 30.4 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
30 Mar 32.1 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
31 Mar 31.8 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
1 Apr 32.9 °C 32 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
2 Apr 32.4 °C 37 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
3 Apr after 32.5 °C 39 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Apr after 30.0 °C 55 % 25 km/h 0.2 mm High 22
5 Apr after 30.4 °C 52 % 22 km/h 4.5 mm Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Mar 2016
After · 9 Apr 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 · 168Every 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 Pech Chreada fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 March 2016 and 2 April 2016: 16 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 2,925 hectares (29.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pech Chreada (2,941 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.1 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 51 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.