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Changling County fire, March 2020 长岭县 · Changling County

Out · last measured on 29 Mar 2020

The fire started on 29 March 2020 in Changling County, China, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,575 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 403th largest in Jilin Province since 2016 (of 812 with a page). Number 149 in China in 2020, of 339.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Nong'an County · 2025Changling County · 2026Changling County · 2026Gongzhuling City · 2025

We have the GWIS perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
1,575ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
1day
29 Mar 2020 – 29 Mar 2020
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
29 Mar
2020
Danger at start
16
Moderate · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

14°high
58km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

13% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 182 ha in 2016, 94 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 202 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1% of the area of London (16 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. Changling County 长岭县 where it started
    1,570 ha
    0.3 %

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)
29 Mar 14.3 °C 19 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
30 Mar after 15.9 °C 24 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
31 Mar after 11.7 °C 11 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
1 Apr after 12.4 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
2 Apr after 15.3 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
3 Apr after 15.3 °C 20 % 73 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
4 Apr after 4.2 °C 15 % 63 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
5 Apr after 10.1 °C 10 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
6 Apr after 13.5 °C 17 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
7 Apr after 7.0 °C 21 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
8 Apr after 4.9 °C 47 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Mar 2020
After · 5 Apr 2020

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Other fires nearby

All fires in China ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Changling County fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 March 2020 and 29 March 2020: 1 day 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 1,575 hectares (15.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Changling County (1,570 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 14.3 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 58 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

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
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 119.

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. No 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.

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 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.