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Sambour fire, February 2016 Sambour

Out · last detection 4 Mar 2016, 18:00 UTC

The fire started on 19 February 2016 in Sambour, Cambodia, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,051 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 40th largest in Kratie since 2016 (of 79 with a page). Number 54 in Cambodia in 2016, of 116.

Burnt area
3,051ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
19 Feb 2016 – 3 Mar 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
19 Feb
2016
Heat detections
223
in a single hotspot: 135 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Mar 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Feb3 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

19202122232425262728291234

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
63km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone 30 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Sambour where it started
    3,066 ha reached on 13 Feb
    0.6 %

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)
19 Feb 35.7 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
20 Feb 34.7 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
21 Feb 34.8 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
22 Feb 36.0 °C 36 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
23 Feb 36.4 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Feb 36.5 °C 29 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
25 Feb 33.6 °C 35 % 63 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Feb 34.7 °C 35 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Feb 35.8 °C 34 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Feb 35.4 °C 33 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Feb 33.9 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
1 Mar 34.5 °C 32 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Mar 35.2 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Mar 35.7 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Mar after 36.3 °C 35 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
5 Mar after 36.2 °C 39 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
6 Mar after 35.5 °C 43 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
7 Mar after 36.5 °C 40 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
8 Mar after 37.1 °C 40 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
9 Mar after 37.2 °C 40 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Mar after 37.4 °C 39 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
11 Mar after 36.8 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Mar after 36.7 °C 42 % 21 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
13 Mar after 36.2 °C 41 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Feb 2016
After · 10 Mar 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 · 223Every 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 Sambour fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 February 2016 and 3 March 2016: 14 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 3,051 hectares (30.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sambour (3,066 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 63 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, class Very 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.