Burned area
satellite only6,907ha
Union of 2 GWIS (Copernicus) perimeters: overlapping areas count once.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 8 Feb 2020 – 11 Mar 2020
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
KH · Cambodia · –
Sambour fire, 8 February 2020 Kaoh Nheaek, Sambour
Out · last detection 11 Mar 2020, 17:33 UTC
The fire started on 8 February 2020 in Sambour, Cambodia, and satellites saw it burning for 33 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,907 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 7th largest in Kratie since 2016 (of 63 with a page). Number 4 in Cambodia in 2020, of 77.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-11-05matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only33days
8 Feb 2020 to 11 Mar 2020: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 11 Mar 2020, 17:33 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only8 Feb 2020
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 8 Feb 2020
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only587
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 224 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 8 Feb 2020 – 11 Mar 2020
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only888MW
Total radiative power on 24 February 2020; hotspots that day: 57.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 24 Feb 2020
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model35.1FWI · high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 60.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 8 Feb 2020, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model37.1°C · 41% RH
High of 37.1 °C and minimum humidity of 41% on 10 March 2020; gusts of 50 km/h on 22 February 2020.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 8 Feb 2020 – 11 Mar 2020
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
Living inside
model≈ 50people
Estimated residents inside the perimeter and 0.28 ha of built-up area (100 m grid, epoch 2020).
- Source
- GHSL R2023A · JRC
- Date
- calculated on 24 October 2026
+− cross-check
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.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
logArea: 7,346 → 6,907 ha.
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logLast day with fire: 4 March 2020 → 11 March 2020.
-
logStart date: 15 February 2020 → 8 February 2020.
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
Area logged each night
Move the slider to see which area the page published each day.
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/sambour-2020-02-3?v=2026-11-05A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire sambour-2020-02-3.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-02-08 | 16 | 36 | 33.9 | 21.9 | 39 | 17.6 | 38.9 | 0 | 35.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-02-09 | 21 | 194 | 35 | 23.7 | 33 | 19.9 | 43.2 | 0 | 37.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-02-10 | 2 | 2 | 31 | 22.7 | 50 | 21 | 45.4 | 0 | 31.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-02-11 | 14 | 37 | 34.7 | 23.1 | 43 | 16.3 | 39.6 | 0 | 28.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-02-12 | 1 | 3 | 35 | 23.7 | 43 | 10.1 | 21.6 | 0 | 24.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-02-13 | 12 | 80 | 34.7 | 24.5 | 45 | 7.7 | 18 | 0 | 23.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-02-14 | 12 | 145 | 34.3 | 24.1 | 45 | 14 | 29.5 | 0 | 27.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-02-15 | 10 | 86 | 35.2 | 23.3 | 40 | 10.9 | 27.4 | 0 | 26.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-02-16 | 4 | 15 | 35.8 | 23.7 | 39 | 12.3 | 23.8 | 0 | 28.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-02-17 | 17 | 46 | 35.3 | 25.8 | 37 | 22 | 43.9 | 0 | 37.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-02-18 | 36 | 170 | 33.7 | 22.6 | 36 | 19.5 | 45.4 | 0 | 35.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-02-19 | 41 | 295 | 33.8 | 21.5 | 33 | 19.4 | 45.4 | 0 | 36.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-02-20 | 36 | 185 | 33.3 | 21.4 | 33 | 18.3 | 43.9 | 0 | 36 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-02-21 | 35 | 291 | 33.4 | 21.7 | 35 | 20.6 | 46.4 | 0 | 38.3 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-02-22 | 28 | 98 | 34.8 | 21.7 | 31 | 21.1 | 49.7 | 0 | 40.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-02-23 | 74 | 277 | 33.8 | 21.8 | 30 | 19.7 | 44.3 | 0 | 39.4 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-02-24 | 57 | 888 | 33.6 | 21.2 | 30 | 16.9 | 40.3 | 0 | 37.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-02-25 | 24 | 168 | 35.1 | 21.4 | 31 | 14.9 | 36 | 0 | 35.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-02-26 | 15 | 47 | 35.2 | 23 | 34 | 15.1 | 36.7 | 0 | 36 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-02-27 | 27 | 82 | 35.1 | 22.8 | 33 | 17.3 | 37.1 | 0 | 38.2 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-02-28 | 31 | 266 | 35.2 | 22.7 | 32 | 17.6 | 36.4 | 0 | 38.7 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-02-29 | 10 | 29 | 34.8 | 22.4 | 37 | 11.5 | 28.1 | 0 | 33.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-03-01 | 9 | 21 | 34.5 | 23.3 | 43 | 11.7 | 22.7 | 0 | 31.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-03-02 | 3 | 8 | 35.7 | 24.2 | 38 | 11.7 | 21.6 | 0 | 31.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-03-03 | 7 | 22 | 35.8 | 24.3 | 37 | 13.3 | 26.6 | 0 | 32.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-03-04 | 7 | 21 | 35.5 | 24.3 | 42 | 11.9 | 23.8 | 0 | 31.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-03-05 | 7 | 32 | 36.5 | 25.1 | 37 | 10.1 | 27.4 | 0 | 30.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-03-06 | 4 | 58 | 32.2 | 24.6 | 54 | 9.4 | 22 | 0.1 | 24.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-03-07 | 6 | 36 | 35.4 | 24.2 | 46 | 8.8 | 27 | 0 | 23.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-03-08 | 6 | 10 | 35.9 | 25 | 46 | 10.5 | 26.6 | 0.1 | 25.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-03-09 | 11 | 63 | 35.8 | 26.2 | 48 | 14.1 | 33.5 | 0 | 27.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-03-10 | 0 | 0 | 37.1 | 26 | 41 | 13.6 | 31 | 0 | 30 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-03-11 | 4 | 249 | 35.8 | 26 | 48 | 12.2 | 31.7 | 1.4 | 19.2 | moderado | 1 |
| 2020-03-12 | 0 | 0 | 36.3 | 25.2 | 39 | 7.8 | 18.4 | 0.1 | 25.3 | alto | 0 |
| 2020-03-13 | 0 | 0 | 36.9 | 25 | 42 | 8.4 | 20.5 | 0 | 26 | alto | 0 |
| 2020-03-14 | 0 | 0 | 36.5 | 26.1 | 49 | 11 | 26.3 | 0.2 | 27.9 | alto | 0 |
| 2020-03-15 | 0 | 0 | 36.1 | 25.1 | 35 | 14.4 | 34.9 | 0 | 33.5 | alto | 0 |
| 2020-03-16 | 0 | 0 | 36.8 | 25 | 35 | 14.2 | 34.9 | 0 | 34 | alto | 0 |
| 2020-03-17 | 0 | 0 | 36.6 | 25.9 | 36 | 12.5 | 28.8 | 0 | 32.7 | alto | 0 |
| 2020-03-18 | 0 | 0 | 33.7 | 24.9 | 47 | 9.5 | 19.8 | 0 | 27.7 | alto | 0 |
| 2020-03-19 | 0 | 0 | 34.5 | 25.3 | 47 | 11.4 | 27 | 0 | 29.1 | alto | 0 |
| 2020-03-20 | 0 | 0 | 35 | 26.1 | 44 | 11.2 | 23.4 | 0 | 29.1 | alto | 0 |
| 2020-03-21 | 0 | 0 | 35.4 | 26.5 | 39 | 11.2 | 22.7 | 0 | 29.2 | alto | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 6,907ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 33days
- 8 Feb 2020 – 11 Mar 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 8 Feb
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 587
- in a single hotspot: 224 MW
- Danger at start
- 35
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 124MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
8 Feb11 Mar
11 Mar 2020
How it evolved, day by day
8 Feb
15 Feb
24 Feb
29 Feb
7 Mar
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
50km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,930 ha in 2016, 2,852 ha in 2017, 8,905 ha in 2018, 11,025 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,118 ha that had burned before.
- 5,672 ha Sambour fire, January 2016 14,654 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,226 ha Kaoh Nheaek fire, February 2019 5,475 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,848 ha Kaoh Nheaek fire, January 2019 2,680 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,808 ha Sambour fire, February 2017 4,269 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
-
5,185 ha reached on 8 Feb1.0 %
-
Sambour where it started2,212 ha reached on 8 Feb0.4 %
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 2020Built-up area0.28 ha
Residents≈ 50
Inside the perimeter there were about 0.28 hectares of built-up land and about 50 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)
Started with 60 days without rain: 11 % of the area in Cambodia
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 Feb | 33.9 °C | 39 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 9 Feb | 35.0 °C | 33 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 10 Feb | 31.0 °C | 50 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 11 Feb | 34.7 °C | 43 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 12 Feb | 35.0 °C | 43 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 13 Feb | 34.7 °C | 45 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 14 Feb | 34.3 °C | 45 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 15 Feb | 35.2 °C | 40 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 16 Feb | 35.8 °C | 39 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 17 Feb | 35.3 °C | 37 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 18 Feb | 33.7 °C | 36 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 19 Feb | 33.8 °C | 33 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 20 Feb | 33.3 °C | 33 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 21 Feb | 33.4 °C | 35 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 22 Feb | 34.8 °C | 31 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 23 Feb | 33.8 °C | 30 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 24 Feb | 33.6 °C | 30 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 25 Feb | 35.1 °C | 31 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 26 Feb | 35.2 °C | 34 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 27 Feb | 35.1 °C | 33 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 28 Feb | 35.2 °C | 32 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 29 Feb | 34.8 °C | 37 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 1 Mar | 34.5 °C | 43 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 2 Mar | 35.7 °C | 38 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 3 Mar | 35.8 °C | 37 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 4 Mar | 35.5 °C | 42 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 5 Mar | 36.5 °C | 37 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 6 Mar | 32.2 °C | 54 % | 22 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 24 |
| 7 Mar | 35.4 °C | 46 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 8 Mar | 35.9 °C | 46 % | 27 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 25 |
| 9 Mar | 35.8 °C | 48 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 10 Mar | 37.1 °C | 41 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 11 Mar | 35.8 °C | 48 % | 32 km/h | 1.4 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 12 Mar after | 36.3 °C | 39 % | 18 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 25 |
| 13 Mar after | 36.9 °C | 42 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 14 Mar after | 36.5 °C | 49 % | 26 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 28 |
| 15 Mar after | 36.1 °C | 35 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 16 Mar after | 36.8 °C | 35 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 17 Mar after | 36.6 °C | 36 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 18 Mar after | 33.7 °C | 47 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 19 Mar after | 34.5 °C | 47 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 20 Mar after | 35.0 °C | 44 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 21 Mar after | 35.4 °C | 39 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 35.1, a minimum humidity of 39% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 18.
FWI at the start
35.1
Minimum humidity
39 %
Days without rain
60+
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Sambour fire, 8 February 2020
6,907 ha
33 days
FWI 35.1
Min. humidity 39 %
Koun Mom fire, February 2024
2,798 ha
41 days
FWI 35.1
Min. humidity 35 %
57 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.6 mm on 28 Mar.
Koun Mom fire, January 2024
3,761 ha
22 days
FWI 34.6
Min. humidity 37 %
28 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.4 mm on 7 Feb.
Andoung Meas fire, March 2019
2,231 ha
13 days
FWI 35.0
Min. humidity 35 %
126 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.6 mm on 23 Mar.
Kampong Svay fire, April 2016
2,302 ha
21 days
FWI 36.4
Min. humidity 37 %
199 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 6.9 mm on 29 Apr.
Sesan fire, January 2016
6,998 ha
19 days
FWI 26.2
Min. humidity 39 %
36 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
What happened to them
- 20 days
- median duration
- 2,373 ha
- median area
- 100 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- 2.6 mm
- rain at the end (median; 7 of 18 had it)
It was 2.9 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 33 days, against 20 days.
Only 1 of its 18 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 11 of 18, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.6 mm.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
—first rain
—no rain in ten days
50km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 11 Mar, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 7 of 18, with a median of 2.6 mm.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 1 Feb 2020
After · 18 Mar 2020
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · 587Every 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 time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 9,578 haKaoh NheaekMarch 2018 · 38 days · 2 km away
- 14,654 haSambour16 January 2016 · 101 days · 8 km away
- 15,256 haSesan5 February 2017 · 38 days · 31 km away
- 16,544 haSesan15 January 2021 · 31 days · 37 km away
- 13,216 haSesanDecember 2019 · 51 days · 38 km away
- 9,711 haSesan6 January 2022 · 45 days · 38 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 8 February 2020 to 11 March 2020 (33 days). The perimeter dates it from 15 February 2020 to 4 March 2020.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,907 hectares (69.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kaoh Nheaek (5,185 ha, 1.0 %); Sambour (2,212 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 50 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.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 18. Their median duration was 20 days and their median area 2,373 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 1 of its 18 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 11 of 18, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.6 mm.
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 · 3 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Area: 7,346 → 6,907 ha.
- Last day with fire: 4 March 2020 → 11 March 2020.
- Start date: 15 February 2020 → 8 February 2020.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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 15 February 2020 to 4 March 2020. 587 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.