Puok fire, February 2016 Puok, Kralanh
The fire started on 23 February 2016 in Puok, Cambodia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,516 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 16th largest in Siem Reap since 2016 (of 30 with a page). Number 76 in Cambodia in 2016, of 116.
- Burnt area
- 2,516ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 10days
- 23 Feb 2016 – 3 Mar 2016
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 23 Feb
- 2016
- Heat detections
- 100
- in a single hotspot: 134 MW
- Energy released
- 1.6GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
Puok where it started1,452 ha reached on 17 Feb1.4 %
-
1,078 ha reached on 20 Feb1.9 %
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.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 100Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 4,002 haAek PhnumFebruary 2020 · 15 days · 12 km away
- 6,012 haAek Phnum24 April 2019 · 13 days · 19 km away
- 3,783 haAek Phnum18 April 2019 · 19 days · 20 km away
- 3,842 haAek PhnumMarch 2019 · 12 days · 21 km away
- 4,046 haAek PhnumApril 2024 · 10 days · 23 km away
- 25,741 haSangkaeApril 2019 · 22 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Puok fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 February 2016 and 3 March 2016: 10 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 2,516 hectares (25.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Puok (1,452 ha, 1.4 %); Kralanh (1,078 ha, 1.9 %).
- 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
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.