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Sambour fire, 19 January 2020 Sambour

Out · last detection 8 Apr 2020, 06:15 UTC

The fire started on 19 January 2020 in Sambour, Cambodia, and satellites saw it burning for 81 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,890 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:

It is the 25th largest in Kratie since 2016 (of 80 with a page). Number 16 in Cambodia in 2020, of 78.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Sambour · 2021Sambour · 2026Sambour · 2024Sambour · 2017

Burnt area
4,890ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
81days
19 Jan 2020 – 8 Apr 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
19 Jan
2020
Heat detections
640
in a single hotspot: 229 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index
Average daily power
120MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Jan8 Apr
8 Apr 2020

How it evolved, day by day

19 Jan 2020 · 62 MW · 2 21 Jan 2020 · 24 MW · 6 22 Jan 2020 · 50 MW · 12 23 Jan 2020 · 9 MW · 1 24 Jan 2020 · 99 MW · 13 25 Jan 2020 · 1,545 MW · 38 26 Jan 2020 · 4 MW · 5 28 Jan 2020 · 8 MW · 1 29 Jan 2020 · 40 MW · 2 30 Jan 2020 · 20 MW · 4 31 Jan 2020 · 11 MW · 5 1 Feb 2020 · 563 MW · 29 2 Feb 2020 · 1,880 MW · 55 3 Feb 2020 · 171 MW · 25 4 Feb 2020 · 58 MW · 12 5 Feb 2020 · 175 MW · 13 6 Feb 2020 · 62 MW · 15 7 Feb 2020 · 117 MW · 15 9 Feb 2020 · 21 MW · 5 10 Feb 2020 · 30 MW · 9 11 Feb 2020 · 36 MW · 6 13 Feb 2020 · 5 MW · 1 14 Feb 2020 · 15 MW · 2 15 Feb 2020 · 6 MW · 3 16 Feb 2020 · 4 MW · 3 17 Feb 2020 · 18 MW · 7 18 Feb 2020 · 24 MW · 10 19 Feb 2020 · 49 MW · 10 20 Feb 2020 · 35 MW · 6 21 Feb 2020 · 9 MW · 4 22 Feb 2020 · 57 MW · 8 23 Feb 2020 · 64 MW · 12 24 Feb 2020 · 182 MW · 20 25 Feb 2020 · 242 MW · 13 26 Feb 2020 · 200 MW · 12 27 Feb 2020 · 277 MW · 12 28 Feb 2020 · 153 MW · 7 29 Feb 2020 · 11 MW · 5 1 Mar 2020 · 1 MW · 1 3 Mar 2020 · 252 MW · 10 4 Mar 2020 · 12 MW · 6 6 Mar 2020 · 1 MW · 1 9 Mar 2020 · 23 MW · 4 10 Mar 2020 · 115 MW · 9 11 Mar 2020 · 186 MW · 9 12 Mar 2020 · 177 MW · 13 13 Mar 2020 · 124 MW · 14 14 Mar 2020 · 50 MW · 5 15 Mar 2020 · 151 MW · 13 16 Mar 2020 · 48 MW · 8 17 Mar 2020 · 73 MW · 10 18 Mar 2020 · 12 MW · 2 19 Mar 2020 · 6 MW · 4 20 Mar 2020 · 12 MW · 4 21 Mar 2020 · 54 MW · 7 22 Mar 2020 · 2 MW · 1 23 Mar 2020 · 35 MW · 4 24 Mar 2020 · 22 MW · 6 25 Mar 2020 · 40 MW · 7 26 Mar 2020 · 225 MW · 18 27 Mar 2020 · 64 MW · 11 28 Mar 2020 · 29 MW · 6 29 Mar 2020 · 6 MW · 5 30 Mar 2020 · 53 MW · 6 31 Mar 2020 · 2 MW · 2 2 Apr 2020 · 213 MW · 12 3 Apr 2020 · 0 MW · 1 4 Apr 2020 · 67 MW · 11 5 Apr 2020 · 113 MW · 19 6 Apr 2020 · 1 MW · 2 8 Apr 2020 · 9 MW · 1
19 Jan 1 Feb 2 Feb 14 Feb 25 Feb 11 Mar 22 Mar 3 Apr

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
48km/h · peak gust
31%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.6 mm on 7 Apr.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.1% of the area of London (49 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Sambour where it started
    4,921 ha reached on 19 Jan
    0.9 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area0.59 ha
Residents≈ 350

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.59 hectares of built-up land and about 350 residents (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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 Jan 32.4 °C 46 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
20 Jan 33.1 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
21 Jan 33.8 °C 41 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
22 Jan 34.1 °C 36 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
23 Jan 34.3 °C 40 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
24 Jan 33.3 °C 42 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
25 Jan 32.9 °C 46 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
26 Jan 33.5 °C 47 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
27 Jan 33.3 °C 48 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
28 Jan 33.9 °C 43 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
29 Jan 31.3 °C 50 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
30 Jan 31.1 °C 48 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
31 Jan 30.8 °C 42 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
1 Feb 32.0 °C 41 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
2 Feb 32.5 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
3 Feb 33.7 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Feb 32.7 °C 39 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
5 Feb 33.0 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Feb 33.0 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
7 Feb 34.1 °C 37 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
8 Feb 34.0 °C 43 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Feb 35.4 °C 34 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Feb 30.6 °C 54 % 43 km/h 0.4 mm High 29
11 Feb 34.3 °C 45 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
12 Feb 34.7 °C 46 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
13 Feb 34.7 °C 46 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
14 Feb 34.8 °C 45 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
15 Feb 35.4 °C 42 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
16 Feb 35.9 °C 40 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
17 Feb 35.4 °C 39 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Feb 34.0 °C 37 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Feb 33.8 °C 34 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Feb 33.4 °C 35 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
21 Feb 33.9 °C 36 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Feb 34.8 °C 34 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
23 Feb 33.8 °C 32 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
24 Feb 33.7 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Feb 34.9 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Feb 35.2 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Feb 35.2 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Feb 35.0 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Feb 34.9 °C 38 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
1 Mar 34.4 °C 45 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
2 Mar 35.1 °C 43 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
3 Mar 35.3 °C 41 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Mar 35.2 °C 45 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
5 Mar 35.9 °C 42 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
6 Mar 32.0 °C 57 % 20 km/h 0.3 mm High 22
7 Mar 35.8 °C 47 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
8 Mar 36.2 °C 48 % 25 km/h 0.1 mm High 25
9 Mar 36.1 °C 52 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
10 Mar 37.3 °C 42 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
11 Mar 35.6 °C 49 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
12 Mar 36.0 °C 42 % 17 km/h 0.2 mm High 26
13 Mar 36.9 °C 43 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
14 Mar 36.7 °C 47 % 25 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
15 Mar 35.8 °C 39 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
16 Mar 36.9 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
17 Mar 36.5 °C 36 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
18 Mar 33.9 °C 48 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
19 Mar 34.4 °C 48 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
20 Mar 34.9 °C 46 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
21 Mar 35.5 °C 40 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
22 Mar 35.2 °C 42 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
23 Mar 35.2 °C 47 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
24 Mar 33.9 °C 51 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
25 Mar 34.8 °C 48 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
26 Mar 35.6 °C 47 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
27 Mar 36.6 °C 45 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
28 Mar 36.1 °C 49 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
29 Mar 35.6 °C 51 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
30 Mar 37.0 °C 43 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
31 Mar 37.7 °C 47 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
1 Apr 36.4 °C 52 % 22 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
2 Apr 35.7 °C 45 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
3 Apr 37.3 °C 41 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
4 Apr 37.3 °C 40 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
5 Apr 37.6 °C 35 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
6 Apr 35.3 °C 49 % 16 km/h 0.2 mm High 27
7 Apr 35.7 °C 47 % 31 km/h 4.6 mm Low 10

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Jan 2020
After · 15 Apr 2020

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 · 640Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 19 January 2020 to 8 April 2020 (81 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 January 2020 to 5 April 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,890 hectares (48.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sambour (4,921 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 5 April 2020 → 8 April 2020.

RSS Changes to this page

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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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 19 January 2020 to 5 April 2020. 640 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.