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Sesan fire, 22 January 2021 Sesan

Out · last detection 8 Feb 2021, 05:37 UTC

The fire started on 22 January 2021 in Sesan, Cambodia, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,629 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 5th largest in Stung Treng since 2016 (of 130 with a page). Number 2 in Cambodia in 2021, of 67.

Burnt area
16,629ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
17days
22 Jan 2021 – 7 Feb 2021
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
22 Jan
2021
Heat detections
1,368
in a single hotspot: 51 MW
Danger at start
20
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
4.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Feb 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Jan7 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

2223242526272829303112345678

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
36km/h · peak gust
32%lowest humidity

It had gone 28 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 10 Feb.

This area had burned before

77% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,409 ha in 2016, 2,015 ha in 2017, 931 ha in 2018, 14,044 ha in 2019, 1,842 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 12,839 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Sesan where it started
    16,732 ha reached on 15 Jan
    6.2 %

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)
22 Jan 32.0 °C 44 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
23 Jan 32.1 °C 46 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
24 Jan 32.7 °C 46 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
25 Jan 34.0 °C 43 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
26 Jan 34.1 °C 40 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
27 Jan 34.3 °C 40 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
28 Jan 33.4 °C 44 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
29 Jan 32.2 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
30 Jan 32.6 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
31 Jan 33.0 °C 39 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
1 Feb 33.0 °C 41 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
2 Feb 33.3 °C 36 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
3 Feb 33.8 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
4 Feb 32.7 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
5 Feb 33.6 °C 38 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Feb 33.5 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
7 Feb 34.2 °C 40 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
8 Feb after 34.3 °C 44 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
9 Feb after 33.3 °C 49 % 31 km/h 0.5 mm High 25
10 Feb after 30.5 °C 54 % 26 km/h 1.4 mm Moderate 12

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Jan 2021
After · 14 Feb 2021

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 · 1,368Every 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 22 January 2021 and 7 February 2021: 17 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 16,629 hectares (166.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sesan (16,732 ha, 6.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.3 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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.