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Sambour fire, December 2018 Sambour

Out · last detection 23 Dec 2018, 05:26 UTC

The fire started on 14 December 2018 in Sambour, Cambodia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,100 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 38th largest in Kratie since 2016 (of 79 with a page). Number 7 in Cambodia in 2018, of 19.

Burnt area
3,100ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
14 Dec 2018 – 23 Dec 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
14 Dec
2018
Heat detections
109
in a single hotspot: 34 MW
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index
Energy released
793MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Dec 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Dec23 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

14151617181920212223

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
54km/h · peak gust
33%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

27% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 852 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Sambour where it started
    3,119 ha reached on 10 Dec
    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)
14 Dec 34.2 °C 39 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
15 Dec 35.7 °C 40 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
16 Dec 36.9 °C 39 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
17 Dec 34.5 °C 39 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
18 Dec 35.9 °C 34 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
19 Dec 36.5 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
20 Dec 35.7 °C 39 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
21 Dec 35.9 °C 38 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
22 Dec 36.5 °C 34 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
23 Dec 35.4 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
24 Dec after 35.9 °C 35 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
25 Dec after 36.6 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.5 mm High 23
26 Dec after 35.5 °C 43 % 22 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 19
27 Dec after 35.3 °C 40 % 30 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 19
28 Dec after 34.3 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.2 mm High 26
29 Dec after 32.7 °C 48 % 56 km/h 0.2 mm High 27
30 Dec after 34.9 °C 34 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
31 Dec after 34.5 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
1 Jan after 34.1 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
2 Jan after 33.4 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 29

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Dec 2018
After · 30 Dec 2018

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 · 109Every 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 14 December 2018 and 23 December 2018: 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 3,100 hectares (31.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sambour (3,119 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, 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.