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Sesan fire, 20 January 2016 Sesan

Out · last detection 26 Jan 2016, 18:13 UTC

The fire started on 20 January 2016 in Sesan, Cambodia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,124 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 63th largest in Stung Treng since 2016 (of 130 with a page). Number 53 in Cambodia in 2016, of 116.

Burnt area
3,124ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
20 Jan 2016 – 26 Jan 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
20 Jan
2016
Heat detections
155
in a single hotspot: 41 MW
Danger at start
16
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
884MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Jan 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Jan26 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

20212223242526

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
45km/h · peak gust
33%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 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. Sesan where it started
    3,143 ha reached on 20 Jan
    1.2 %

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)
20 Jan 36.1 °C 39 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
21 Jan 36.8 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
22 Jan 35.4 °C 43 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
23 Jan 37.2 °C 39 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
24 Jan 33.5 °C 36 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
25 Jan 30.6 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
26 Jan 32.4 °C 34 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
27 Jan after 33.9 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
28 Jan after 35.6 °C 43 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
29 Jan after 35.8 °C 43 % 25 km/h 0.2 mm High 23
30 Jan after 36.2 °C 36 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
31 Jan after 36.0 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
1 Feb after 36.6 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
2 Feb after 35.4 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Feb after 34.6 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
4 Feb after 34.4 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
5 Feb after 35.2 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Jan 2016
After · 2 Feb 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 · 155Every 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 Sesan fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 January 2016 and 26 January 2016: 7 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 3,124 hectares (31.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sesan (3,143 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, 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

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.