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Sesan fire, 4 January 2019 Sesan

Out · last detection 9 Feb 2019, 05:25 UTC

The fire started on 4 January 2019 in Sesan, Cambodia, and satellites saw it burning for 37 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,449 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 53th largest in Stung Treng since 2016 (of 130 with a page). Number 22 in Cambodia in 2019, of 67.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Sambour · 2016Sesan · 2017Kaoh Nheaek · 2018Sesan · 2021

Burnt area
3,449ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
37days
4 Jan 2019 – 9 Feb 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
4 Jan
2019
Heat detections
426
in a single hotspot: 98 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Average daily power
95MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Jan9 Feb
9 Feb 2019

How it evolved, day by day

4 Jan 2019 · 46 MW · 7 5 Jan 2019 · 57 MW · 9 6 Jan 2019 · 37 MW · 14 7 Jan 2019 · 33 MW · 4 8 Jan 2019 · 65 MW · 11 9 Jan 2019 · 231 MW · 31 10 Jan 2019 · 324 MW · 18 11 Jan 2019 · 259 MW · 22 12 Jan 2019 · 196 MW · 29 13 Jan 2019 · 81 MW · 22 14 Jan 2019 · 437 MW · 28 15 Jan 2019 · 129 MW · 26 16 Jan 2019 · 6 MW · 8 17 Jan 2019 · 10 MW · 6 18 Jan 2019 · 66 MW · 8 19 Jan 2019 · 129 MW · 8 20 Jan 2019 · 7 MW · 1 21 Jan 2019 · 95 MW · 7 22 Jan 2019 · 99 MW · 12 23 Jan 2019 · 1 MW · 2 24 Jan 2019 · 105 MW · 14 25 Jan 2019 · 121 MW · 12 26 Jan 2019 · 128 MW · 5 27 Jan 2019 · 72 MW · 10 28 Jan 2019 · 2 MW · 3 29 Jan 2019 · 166 MW · 15 30 Jan 2019 · 52 MW · 8 31 Jan 2019 · 10 MW · 5 1 Feb 2019 · 2 MW · 1 2 Feb 2019 · 30 MW · 6 3 Feb 2019 · 29 MW · 7 4 Feb 2019 · 92 MW · 12 6 Feb 2019 · 38 MW · 5 7 Feb 2019 · 29 MW · 9 8 Feb 2019 · 233 MW · 15 9 Feb 2019 · 5 MW · 1
4 Jan 10 Jan 14 Jan 16 Jan 22 Jan 28 Jan 3 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

38°high
53km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

27% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 852 ha in 2016, 73 ha in 2017.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.2% of the area of London (34 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. Sesan where it started
    3,467 ha
    1.3 %

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 2020
Built-up area2.6 ha
Residents≈ 200

Inside the perimeter there were about 2.6 hectares of built-up land and about 200 residents (GHSL 2020, 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)
4 Jan 34.1 °C 41 % 53 km/h 0.3 mm High 29
5 Jan 36.7 °C 31 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Jan 35.7 °C 38 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Jan 36.2 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
8 Jan 35.0 °C 36 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
9 Jan 35.5 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
10 Jan 36.2 °C 31 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Jan 36.3 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Jan 35.8 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
13 Jan 36.5 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 Jan 35.8 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Jan 35.7 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Jan 35.2 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
17 Jan 34.8 °C 39 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Jan 35.4 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Jan 35.2 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 Jan 36.2 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Jan 35.1 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Jan 35.2 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
23 Jan 33.7 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Jan 33.8 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Jan 33.6 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Jan 34.2 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
27 Jan 33.9 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Jan 34.4 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Jan 34.8 °C 31 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Jan 35.8 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
31 Jan 35.1 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Feb 35.3 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Feb 36.1 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 Feb 37.3 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Feb 37.0 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
5 Feb 36.3 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
6 Feb 36.3 °C 35 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
7 Feb 37.3 °C 33 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
8 Feb 38.4 °C 33 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Feb 37.9 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Feb after 38.3 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Feb after 38.5 °C 14 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
12 Feb after 36.4 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Feb after 37.0 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Feb after 36.9 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Feb after 37.6 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
16 Feb after 36.7 °C 28 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
17 Feb after 35.7 °C 33 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Feb after 36.4 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
19 Feb after 37.5 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Dec 2018
After · 16 Feb 2019

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 · 426Every 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 4 January 2019 and 9 February 2019: 37 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 3,449 hectares (34.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sesan (3,467 ha, 1.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.4 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 426 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 2020, 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.