Skip to content
worldfires
KH · Cambodia · →

Pech Chreada fire, January 2019 Pech Chreada

Out · last detection 15 Jan 2019, 06:34 UTC

The fire started on 7 January 2019 in Pech Chreada, Cambodia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,839 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 58th largest in Mondulkiri since 2016 (of 111 with a page). Number 35 in Cambodia in 2019, of 65.

Burnt area
2,839ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
7 Jan 2019 – 15 Jan 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
7 Jan
2019
Heat detections
79
in a single hotspot: 35 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
388MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Jan 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Jan15 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

79101112131415

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
50km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

17% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 490 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Pech Chreada where it started
    2,858 ha reached on 4 Jan
    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)
7 Jan 35.8 °C 33 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
8 Jan 32.3 °C 46 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
9 Jan 35.9 °C 29 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
10 Jan 35.8 °C 32 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
11 Jan 35.9 °C 33 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
12 Jan 36.1 °C 33 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Jan 36.1 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Jan 35.9 °C 25 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Jan 36.2 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Jan after 35.1 °C 35 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
17 Jan after 34.2 °C 38 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Jan after 34.6 °C 29 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Jan after 35.2 °C 32 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Jan after 35.8 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Jan after 35.4 °C 32 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
22 Jan after 34.1 °C 35 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Jan after 33.4 °C 27 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Jan after 33.3 °C 21 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Jan after 33.8 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Dec 2018
After · 22 Jan 2019

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 · 79Every 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 7 January 2019 and 15 January 2019: 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 2,839 hectares (28.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pech Chreada (2,858 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 50 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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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.