Sambour fire, 25 January 2020 Sambour, Santuk, Prek Prasab
The fire started on 25 January 2020 in Sambour, Cambodia, and satellites saw it burning for 44 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,437 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 6th largest in Kratie since 2016 (of 80 with a page). The largest in Cambodia in 2020, of 73.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 16,437ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 44days
- 25 Jan 2020 – 8 Mar 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- districts
- Started on
- 25 Jan
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 1,353
- in a single hotspot: 543 MW
- Danger at start
- 28
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 293MW
- detected power per day, on average
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.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
64% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 12,687 ha in 2016, 2,811 ha in 2017, 2,885 ha in 2018, 882 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,444 ha that had burned before.
- 2,215 ha Prek Prasab fire, January 2016 21,964 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,929 ha Santuk fire, February 2018 4,828 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,859 ha Sambour fire, March 2016 2,073 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,832 ha Sambour fire, February 2016 3,051 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,174 ha Santuk fire, February 2017 2,480 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 870 ha Santuk fire, February 2017 3,318 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 635 ha Sambour fire, February 2017 13,270 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 499 ha Santuk fire, April 2016 2,426 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Sambour where it started7,958 ha reached on 25 Jan1.5 %
-
7,500 ha reached on 3 Feb2.9 %
-
1,075 ha reached on 27 Jan0.8 %
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 2020Inside the perimeter there were about 0.55 hectares of built-up land and about 150 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Jan | 33.9 °C | 43 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 26 Jan | 34.6 °C | 42 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 27 Jan | 34.0 °C | 45 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 28 Jan | 34.5 °C | 38 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 29 Jan | 32.6 °C | 45 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 30 Jan | 31.6 °C | 47 % | 33 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 29 |
| 31 Jan | 30.8 °C | 41 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 1 Feb | 32.1 °C | 39 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 2 Feb | 32.7 °C | 36 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 3 Feb | 33.8 °C | 32 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 4 Feb | 33.2 °C | 37 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 5 Feb | 33.2 °C | 32 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 6 Feb | 33.5 °C | 25 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 7 Feb | 34.3 °C | 35 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 8 Feb | 33.8 °C | 42 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 9 Feb | 35.5 °C | 33 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 10 Feb | 30.0 °C | 53 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 11 Feb | 34.7 °C | 45 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 12 Feb | 34.8 °C | 45 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 13 Feb | 35.1 °C | 42 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 14 Feb | 35.3 °C | 41 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 15 Feb | 36.0 °C | 38 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 16 Feb | 36.4 °C | 37 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 17 Feb | 35.7 °C | 37 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 18 Feb | 34.3 °C | 36 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 19 Feb | 34.2 °C | 32 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 20 Feb | 33.8 °C | 32 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 21 Feb | 34.3 °C | 34 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 22 Feb | 35.1 °C | 33 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 23 Feb | 34.1 °C | 31 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 24 Feb | 34.2 °C | 29 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 25 Feb | 35.4 °C | 28 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 26 Feb | 35.4 °C | 33 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 27 Feb | 35.5 °C | 33 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 28 Feb | 35.1 °C | 34 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 29 Feb | 35.6 °C | 34 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 1 Mar | 35.5 °C | 39 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 2 Mar | 35.3 °C | 39 % | 19 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 32 |
| 3 Mar | 35.5 °C | 40 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 4 Mar | 35.0 °C | 48 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 5 Mar | 35.7 °C | 45 % | 24 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 28 |
| 6 Mar | 33.2 °C | 51 % | 22 km/h | 0.8 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 7 Mar | 36.4 °C | 49 % | 24 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 23 |
| 8 Mar | 36.7 °C | 46 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 9 Mar after | 36.2 °C | 50 % | 29 km/h | 0.9 mm | High 21 |
| 10 Mar after | 37.9 °C | 40 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 11 Mar after | 35.8 °C | 48 % | 32 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 30 |
| 12 Mar after | 36.9 °C | 37 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 13 Mar after | 37.8 °C | 38 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 14 Mar after | 37.3 °C | 43 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 15 Mar after | 36.3 °C | 37 % | 30 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 30 |
| 16 Mar after | 37.1 °C | 35 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 17 Mar after | 37.1 °C | 31 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 18 Mar after | 34.2 °C | 46 % | 23 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.
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 · 1,353Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 23,495 haSambour7 February 2021 · 55 days · 8 km away
- 21,964 haPrek Prasab15 January 2016 · 57 days · 14 km away
- 13,270 haSambour18 February 2017 · 25 days · 18 km away
- 9,777 haSambour17 February 2017 · 31 days · 19 km away
- 11,199 haSambour9 February 2026 · 16 days · 26 km away
- 8,003 haSambour29 January 2024 · 27 days · 27 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Sambour fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 25 January 2020 to 8 March 2020 (44 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 February 2020 to 1 March 2020.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 16,437 hectares (164.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Sambour (7,958 ha, 1.5 %); Santuk (7,500 ha, 2.9 %); Prek Prasab (1,075 ha, 0.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 1 March 2020 → 8 March 2020.
- Start date: 1 February 2020 → 25 January 2020.
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
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 1 February 2020 to 1 March 2020. 1,353 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.
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.