Santuk fire, February 2018 Santuk
The fire started on 27 February 2018 in Santuk, Cambodia, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,828 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 6th largest in Kampong Thom since 2016 (of 30 with a page). Number 6 in Cambodia in 2018, of 28.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 4,828ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 22days
- 27 Feb 2018 – 20 Mar 2018
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 27 Feb
- 2018
- Heat detections
- 251
- in a single hotspot: 51 MW
- Danger at start
- 21
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 107MW
- 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 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.8 mm on 15 Mar.
This area had burned before
77% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,069 ha in 2016, 1,577 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,716 ha that had burned before.
- 3,040 ha Prek Prasab fire, January 2016 21,964 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,615 ha Santuk fire, March 2016 4,445 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,032 ha Santuk fire, April 2016 2,426 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 831 ha Santuk fire, February 2017 3,318 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 746 ha Santuk fire, February 2017 2,480 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 140 ha Santuk fire, March 2016 2,345 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
-
Santuk where it started4,860 ha reached on 27 Feb1.9 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 Mar | 34.5 °C | 49 % | 24 km/h | 0.5 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 7 Mar | 36.4 °C | 45 % | 17 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 23 |
| 8 Mar | 37.3 °C | 42 % | 25 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 25 |
| 9 Mar | 34.6 °C | 40 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 10 Mar | 34.4 °C | 35 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 11 Mar | 35.1 °C | 32 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 12 Mar | 36.2 °C | 34 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 13 Mar | 35.8 °C | 40 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 14 Mar | 33.4 °C | 51 % | 30 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 26 |
| 15 Mar | 34.7 °C | 50 % | 27 km/h | 3.8 mm | Low 6 |
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 · 251Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 16,437 haSambour25 January 2020 · 44 days · 16 km away
- 21,964 haPrek Prasab15 January 2016 · 57 days · 23 km away
- 23,495 haSambour7 February 2021 · 55 days · 24 km away
- 13,270 haSambour18 February 2017 · 25 days · 25 km away
- 8,003 haSambour29 January 2024 · 27 days · 29 km away
- 11,199 haSambour9 February 2026 · 16 days · 31 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Santuk fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 February 2018 to 20 March 2018 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 6 March 2018 to 14 March 2018.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,828 hectares (48.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Santuk (4,860 ha, 1.9 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, class 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: 14 March 2018 → 20 March 2018.
- Start date: 6 March 2018 → 27 February 2018.
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.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 6 March 2018 to 14 March 2018. 251 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.
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.