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Sangkae fire, March 2016 Aek Phnum, Sangkae, Bakan

Out · last detection 16 May 2016, 05:58 UTC

The fire started on 18 March 2016 in Sangkae, Cambodia, and satellites saw it burning for 59 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 64,197 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 municipalities.

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 largest fire in Battambang since 2016 (of 31 with a page). The largest in Cambodia in 2016, of 118.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Sangkae · 2019Sangkae · 2024Moung Ruessei · 2016Moung Ruessei · 2024

Burnt area
64,197ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
59days
18 Mar 2016 – 15 May 2016
Municipalities hit
4
districts
Started on
18 Mar
2016
Heat detections
7,568
in a single hotspot: 756 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Average daily power
2.5GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Mar15 May
16 May 2016

How it evolved, day by day

18 Mar 2016 · 338 MW · 47 19 Mar 2016 · 82 MW · 24 20 Mar 2016 · 1,744 MW · 125 21 Mar 2016 · 1,381 MW · 86 22 Mar 2016 · 2,138 MW · 177 23 Mar 2016 · 1,069 MW · 91 24 Mar 2016 · 820 MW · 76 25 Mar 2016 · 297 MW · 25 26 Mar 2016 · 1,707 MW · 128 27 Mar 2016 · 1,255 MW · 110 28 Mar 2016 · 43 MW · 18 29 Mar 2016 · 678 MW · 85 30 Mar 2016 · 276 MW · 32 31 Mar 2016 · 267 MW · 45 1 Apr 2016 · 509 MW · 48 2 Apr 2016 · 895 MW · 101 3 Apr 2016 · 734 MW · 77 4 Apr 2016 · 13 MW · 11 5 Apr 2016 · 2,983 MW · 138 6 Apr 2016 · 5,390 MW · 285 7 Apr 2016 · 4,752 MW · 352 8 Apr 2016 · 2,192 MW · 166 9 Apr 2016 · 2,492 MW · 158 10 Apr 2016 · 13,442 MW · 401 11 Apr 2016 · 9,725 MW · 432 12 Apr 2016 · 9,609 MW · 409 13 Apr 2016 · 5,609 MW · 261 14 Apr 2016 · 4,758 MW · 261 15 Apr 2016 · 11,737 MW · 434 16 Apr 2016 · 3,804 MW · 250 17 Apr 2016 · 2,353 MW · 138 18 Apr 2016 · 3,821 MW · 170 19 Apr 2016 · 2,014 MW · 141 20 Apr 2016 · 469 MW · 69 21 Apr 2016 · 1,263 MW · 92 22 Apr 2016 · 1,914 MW · 105 23 Apr 2016 · 6,969 MW · 277 24 Apr 2016 · 2,875 MW · 201 25 Apr 2016 · 2,800 MW · 133 26 Apr 2016 · 1,917 MW · 126 27 Apr 2016 · 9,180 MW · 203 28 Apr 2016 · 4,028 MW · 147 29 Apr 2016 · 1,912 MW · 111 30 Apr 2016 · 6 MW · 4 1 May 2016 · 990 MW · 57 2 May 2016 · 160 MW · 10 3 May 2016 · 1,320 MW · 51 4 May 2016 · 1,557 MW · 46 5 May 2016 · 292 MW · 21 6 May 2016 · 98 MW · 5 7 May 2016 · 250 MW · 15 8 May 2016 · 668 MW · 31 9 May 2016 · 1,667 MW · 62 10 May 2016 · 2,084 MW · 115 11 May 2016 · 2,631 MW · 65 12 May 2016 · 473 MW · 29 13 May 2016 · 650 MW · 25 14 May 2016 · 2,102 MW · 55 15 May 2016 · 90 MW · 7 16 May 2016 · 360 MW · 12
18 Mar 27 Mar 5 Apr 10 Apr 14 Apr 23 Apr 2 May 11 May

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

The weather it burned in

42°high
41km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.5 mm on 16 May.

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 41% of the area of London (642 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. Aek Phnum
    21,548 ha
    20 %
  2. Sangkae where it started
    21,443 ha
    18 %
  3. Bakan
    11,975 ha
    7.7 %
  4. Moung Ruessei
    9,195 ha
    6.5 %

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 2015
Built-up area0.66 ha
Residents≈ 1,400

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.66 hectares of built-up land and about 1,400 residents (GHSL 2015, 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)
18 Mar 39.0 °C 38 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
19 Mar 39.5 °C 37 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
20 Mar 40.0 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Mar 39.9 °C 36 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
22 Mar 39.6 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Mar 39.4 °C 34 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Mar 39.3 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
25 Mar 33.9 °C 53 % 36 km/h 5.4 mm Low 6
26 Mar 34.5 °C 45 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
27 Mar 34.8 °C 43 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
28 Mar 33.7 °C 40 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
29 Mar 36.6 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
30 Mar 36.2 °C 44 % 24 km/h 0.4 mm High 26
31 Mar 38.1 °C 36 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
1 Apr 37.2 °C 41 % 28 km/h 0.8 mm High 24
2 Apr 37.8 °C 40 % 23 km/h 0.2 mm High 25
3 Apr 37.6 °C 42 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
4 Apr 39.1 °C 37 % 27 km/h 2.9 mm Moderate 17
5 Apr 38.6 °C 37 % 22 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
6 Apr 40.9 °C 29 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
7 Apr 40.4 °C 31 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
8 Apr 39.5 °C 39 % 26 km/h 0.2 mm High 32
9 Apr 39.8 °C 38 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
10 Apr 41.4 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Apr 41.7 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Apr 41.9 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Apr 41.9 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Apr 41.4 °C 31 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Apr 41.9 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Apr 41.4 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Apr 41.0 °C 34 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Apr 41.2 °C 34 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
19 Apr 39.1 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.8 mm High 31
20 Apr 37.8 °C 45 % 23 km/h 1.6 mm Moderate 17
21 Apr 39.5 °C 33 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
22 Apr 39.0 °C 40 % 23 km/h 0.3 mm High 32
23 Apr 41.1 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Apr 41.3 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Apr 40.9 °C 30 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Apr 41.6 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Apr 41.4 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Apr 41.3 °C 35 % 29 km/h 2.8 mm High 24
29 Apr 37.0 °C 52 % 30 km/h 16.8 mm Very low 3
30 Apr 34.2 °C 60 % 21 km/h 22.5 mm Very low 1
1 May 36.9 °C 47 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
2 May 38.2 °C 47 % 27 km/h 2.3 mm Low 7
3 May 38.7 °C 45 % 29 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 13
4 May 38.5 °C 46 % 30 km/h 3.8 mm Low 6
5 May 38.6 °C 47 % 19 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 12
6 May 38.2 °C 48 % 23 km/h 1.4 mm Low 11
7 May 39.5 °C 37 % 31 km/h 2.4 mm Moderate 12
8 May 37.5 °C 49 % 26 km/h 3.1 mm Low 6
9 May 38.7 °C 44 % 31 km/h 4.1 mm Low 7
10 May 39.9 °C 41 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 15
11 May 40.6 °C 39 % 33 km/h 3.2 mm Low 11
12 May 39.3 °C 45 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 15
13 May 40.1 °C 35 % 29 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 17
14 May 37.9 °C 41 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
15 May 37.7 °C 43 % 27 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 14
16 May after 36.0 °C 53 % 26 km/h 4.5 mm Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Mar 2016
After · 22 May 2016

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 · 7,568Every 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 Sangkae fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 March 2016 and 15 May 2016: 59 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 64,197 hectares (642.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Aek Phnum (21,548 ha, 20 %); Sangkae (21,443 ha, 18 %); Bakan (11,975 ha, 7.7 %); Moung Ruessei (9,195 ha, 6.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.9 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 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; 5 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 7,568 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 2015, 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.