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Sambour fire, 7 January 2026 Sambour

Out · last detection 5 Feb 2026, 06:03 UTC

The fire started on 7 January 2026 in Sambour, Cambodia, and satellites saw it burning for 30 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,299 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 8th largest in Kratie since 2016 (of 80 with a page). Number 7 in Cambodia in 2026, of 118.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Sambour · 2019Sambour · 2022Sambour · 2019Chetr Borei · 2021

Burnt area
13,299ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
30days
7 Jan 2026 – 5 Feb 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
7 Jan
2026
Heat detections
451
in a single hotspot: 97 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Average daily power
124MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Jan5 Feb
5 Feb 2026

How it evolved, day by day

7 Jan 2026 · 52 MW · 5 8 Jan 2026 · 31 MW · 5 9 Jan 2026 · 120 MW · 20 10 Jan 2026 · 80 MW · 14 11 Jan 2026 · 15 MW · 3 12 Jan 2026 · 106 MW · 14 13 Jan 2026 · 20 MW · 5 14 Jan 2026 · 91 MW · 17 15 Jan 2026 · 138 MW · 26 16 Jan 2026 · 29 MW · 7 17 Jan 2026 · 4 MW · 1 19 Jan 2026 · 208 MW · 45 20 Jan 2026 · 220 MW · 16 21 Jan 2026 · 705 MW · 61 22 Jan 2026 · 496 MW · 54 23 Jan 2026 · 193 MW · 21 24 Jan 2026 · 379 MW · 23 25 Jan 2026 · 20 MW · 7 26 Jan 2026 · 56 MW · 9 27 Jan 2026 · 29 MW · 7 28 Jan 2026 · 48 MW · 5 29 Jan 2026 · 34 MW · 6 31 Jan 2026 · 32 MW · 11 1 Feb 2026 · 109 MW · 20 2 Feb 2026 · 61 MW · 12 3 Feb 2026 · 20 MW · 5 4 Feb 2026 · 169 MW · 30 5 Feb 2026 · 9 MW · 2
7 Jan 11 Jan 15 Jan 20 Jan 21 Jan 24 Jan 28 Jan 2 Feb

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
47km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

55% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,876 ha in 2017, 482 ha in 2019, 4,714 ha in 2020, 960 ha in 2021, 2,081 ha in 2022, 774 ha in 2023, 883 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,308 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 8.4% of the area of London (133 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
    13,375 ha reached on 7 Jan
    2.5 %

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 2025
Built-up area1.0 ha
Residents≈ 150

Inside the perimeter there were about 1.0 hectares of built-up land and about 150 residents (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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)
7 Jan 30.3 °C 42 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
8 Jan 29.1 °C 38 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
9 Jan 28.8 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
10 Jan 30.1 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
11 Jan 31.1 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
12 Jan 32.1 °C 40 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
13 Jan 32.0 °C 42 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
14 Jan 32.8 °C 38 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
15 Jan 33.2 °C 41 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
16 Jan 33.2 °C 38 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
17 Jan 33.3 °C 39 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
18 Jan 31.8 °C 46 % 22 km/h 0.2 mm High 23
19 Jan 32.7 °C 37 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
20 Jan 32.2 °C 39 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
21 Jan 32.2 °C 33 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
22 Jan 32.3 °C 32 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Jan 32.0 °C 33 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Jan 32.5 °C 35 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Jan 32.5 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
26 Jan 32.6 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
27 Jan 32.6 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
28 Jan 32.8 °C 37 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Jan 33.5 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
30 Jan 33.2 °C 36 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
31 Jan 32.8 °C 38 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
1 Feb 33.2 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Feb 33.2 °C 36 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 Feb 32.4 °C 43 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Feb 34.2 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Feb 34.8 °C 38 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
6 Feb after 34.1 °C 42 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
7 Feb after 32.8 °C 49 % 26 km/h 0.3 mm High 27
8 Feb after 33.7 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Feb after 34.9 °C 31 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
10 Feb after 35.4 °C 35 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
11 Feb after 32.6 °C 49 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Feb after 35.7 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Feb after 36.4 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
14 Feb after 37.0 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Feb after 37.1 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Dec 2025
After · 12 Feb 2026

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 25 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 38 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak38 µg/m³
Days over the guideline8 days
PM1040 µg/m³
Optical depth0.74
12131415161718192021222324252627282930311
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 451Every 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 7 January 2026 to 5 February 2026 (30 days). The perimeter dates it from 14 January 2026 to 29 January 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 13,299 hectares (133.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sambour (13,375 ha, 2.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.8 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.
  1. Last day with fire: 29 January 2026 → 5 February 2026.
  2. Start date: 14 January 2026 → 7 January 2026.

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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 14 January 2026 to 29 January 2026. 451 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 2025, 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.