Siem Bouk fire, January 2020 Thala Barivat, Siem Bouk
The fire started on 20 January 2020 in Siem Bouk, Cambodia, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,212 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 113th largest in Stung Treng since 2016 (of 130 with a page). Number 58 in Cambodia in 2020, of 70.
- Burnt area
- 2,212ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 17days
- 20 Jan 2020 – 5 Feb 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 20 Jan
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 115
- in a single hotspot: 38 MW
- Average daily power
- 40MW
- 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.
This area had burned before
80% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,444 ha in 2016, 1,619 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,768 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
1,631 ha reached on 18 Jan0.6 %
-
Siem Bouk where it started593 ha reached on 15 Jan0.4 %
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.
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 · 115Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Siem Bouk fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 January 2020 and 5 February 2020: 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 2,212 hectares (22.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Thala Barivat (1,631 ha, 0.6 %); Siem Bouk (593 ha, 0.4 %).
- 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.
Report an error
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.