Acheng District fire, March 2026 阿城区 · Wuchang City, Acheng District, Xiangfang District
The fire started on 13 March 2026 in Acheng District, China, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 80,930 hectares from heat detections, spread across 5 municipalities.
It is the 2th largest in Heilongjiang Province since 2016 (of 1915 with a page). Number 2 in China in 2026, of 1094.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 80,930ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 21days
- 13 Mar 2026 – 2 Apr 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 5
- counties
- Started on
- 13 Mar
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 3,387
- in a single hotspot: 185 MW
- Danger at start
- 5
- Very low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.7GW
- 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 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 13.2 mm on 3 Apr.
This area had burned before
65% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,327 ha in 2016, 25,847 ha in 2017, 2,064 ha in 2018, 3,732 ha in 2020, 18,976 ha in 2021, 16,389 ha in 2022, 18,975 ha in 2023, 7,040 ha in 2024, 17,424 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 52,346 ha that had burned before.
- 9,264 ha Acheng District fire, March 2023 11,683 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,152 ha Acheng District fire, April 2021 7,207 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,851 ha Acheng District fire, November 2017 2,190 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,835 ha Wuchang City fire, April 2017 3,377 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,718 ha Acheng District fire, November 2017 2,025 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,499 ha Acheng District fire, April 2017 1,681 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,283 ha Acheng District fire, March 2023 1,353 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,191 ha Acheng District fire, April 2022 1,534 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).
Beijing (Dongcheng and Xicheng) boundary: geoBoundaries · Lee Beryman, OpenStreetMap · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL 1.0).
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).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Wuchang City 五常市39,935 ha reached on 13 Mar5.4 %
-
36,964 ha reached on 14 Mar16 %
-
2,128 ha reached on 15 Mar6.3 %
-
2,093 ha reached on 14 Mar0.7 %
-
204 ha reached on 22 Mar2.1 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 1,463 hectares of built-up land and about 95,000 residents (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 Mar | 10.0 °C | 14 % | 48 km/h | 0.9 mm | Very low 5 |
| 14 Mar | 2.5 °C | 27 % | 40 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very low 4 |
| 15 Mar | 6.1 °C | 13 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 5 |
| 16 Mar | 5.2 °C | 19 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 17 Mar | 10.8 °C | 15 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 18 Mar | 1.0 °C | 22 % | 54 km/h | 1.2 mm | Very low 3 |
| 19 Mar | -0.1 °C | 29 % | 48 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very low 4 |
| 20 Mar | 1.1 °C | 26 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 21 Mar | 11.2 °C | 18 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 22 Mar | 11.3 °C | 25 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 23 Mar | 12.4 °C | 17 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 24 Mar | 16.4 °C | 15 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 25 Mar | 15.6 °C | 32 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 26 Mar | 13.5 °C | 22 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 27 Mar | 11.9 °C | 27 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 28 Mar | 13.3 °C | 11 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 29 Mar | 12.1 °C | 31 % | 55 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 30 Mar | 9.9 °C | 34 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 31 Mar | 13.1 °C | 20 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 1 Apr | 7.9 °C | 13 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 2 Apr | 13.7 °C | 10 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 3 Apr after | 5.6 °C | 46 % | 41 km/h | 13.2 mm | Very low 0 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 23 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 201 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 115: 7.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 3,387Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 7,207 haAcheng District 阿城区19 April 2021 · 3 days · 5 km away
- 11,683 haAcheng District 阿城区28 March 2023 · 6 days · 7 km away
- 4,484 haWuchang City 五常市21 March 2026 · 13 days · 22 km away
- 19,799 haShuangcheng City2 April 2017 · 15 days · 39 km away
- 16,036 haYushu City 榆树市4 April 2021 · 9 days · 39 km away
- 4,509 haYushu City 榆树市11 November 2020 · 4 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Acheng District fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 13 March 2026 to 2 April 2026 (21 days). The perimeter dates it from 20 March 2026 to 2 April 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 80,930 hectares (809.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 5 municipalities: Wuchang City (39,935 ha, 5.4 %); Acheng District (36,964 ha, 16 %); Xiangfang District (2,128 ha, 6.3 %); Shuangcheng City (2,093 ha, 0.7 %); Pingfang District (204 ha, 2.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 16.4 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 16, class Moderate.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of China (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.
Emergency number: 119 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Start date: 20 March 2026 → 13 March 2026.
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; 6 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 20 March 2026 to 2 April 2026. 3,387 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 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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 ADM3 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). 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.