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Santuk fire, 11 March 2016 Santuk

Out · last detection 2 Apr 2016, 06:22 UTC

The fire started on 11 March 2016 in Santuk, Cambodia, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,445 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 8th largest in Kampong Thom since 2016 (of 28 with a page). Number 29 in Cambodia in 2016, of 116.

Burnt area
4,445ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
22days
11 Mar 2016 – 1 Apr 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
11 Mar
2016
Heat detections
430
in a single hotspot: 226 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Apr 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Mar1 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

11121314151617181920212223242526272829303112

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
42km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 51 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Santuk where it started
    4,474 ha reached on 4 Mar
    1.7 %

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

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)
11 Mar 36.8 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Mar 36.8 °C 42 % 21 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
13 Mar 36.3 °C 41 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Mar 38.0 °C 36 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Mar 36.5 °C 44 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
16 Mar 37.8 °C 38 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
17 Mar 38.4 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
18 Mar 37.4 °C 39 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
19 Mar 38.1 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Mar 38.3 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
21 Mar 38.3 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
22 Mar 38.7 °C 34 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Mar 37.8 °C 39 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Mar 37.9 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Mar 35.9 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
26 Mar 36.5 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
27 Mar 35.7 °C 34 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Mar 35.5 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
29 Mar 36.7 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
30 Mar 37.5 °C 30 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
31 Mar 37.8 °C 31 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Apr 36.8 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
2 Apr after 37.5 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Apr after 36.9 °C 37 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Apr after 37.3 °C 40 % 30 km/h 0.4 mm High 34
5 Apr after 36.4 °C 41 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Apr after 38.4 °C 40 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
7 Apr after 38.3 °C 38 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Apr after 38.4 °C 40 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Apr after 37.6 °C 45 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm High 33
10 Apr after 38.1 °C 42 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Apr after 39.1 °C 43 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Mar 2016
After · 8 Apr 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 · 430Every 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 Santuk fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 March 2016 and 1 April 2016: 22 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 4,445 hectares (44.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Santuk (4,474 ha, 1.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.7 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 42 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

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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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.