How long did the Changling County fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 March 2026 and 20 March 2026: 4 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 1,023 hectares (10.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Changling County (593 ha, 0.1 %); Nong'an County (428 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 11.8 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 14, 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.

CN · China · 2026-03-17 → 2026-03-20

Changling County fire, 17 March 2026 长岭县 · Changling County, Nong'an County

Out · last detection 20 Mar 2026, 04:24 UTC

The fire started on 17 March 2026 in Changling County, China, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,023 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 792th largest in Jilin Province since 2016 (of 812 with a page). Number 905 in China in 2026, of 934.

The power measured by the satellite is low (6.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 1,023ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 4days; 17 Mar 2026 – 20 Mar 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; counties
Started on: 17 Mar; 2026
Heat detections: 17; in a single hotspot: 6 MW
Danger at start: 14; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 15MW; detected power per day, on average

Play back 20 Mar 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Mar20 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

17 Mar 19 Mar 20 Mar

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

The weather it burned in

12°high

56km/h · peak gust

18%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

42% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 136 ha in 2022, 206 ha in 2023, 170 ha in 2024, 437 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 425 ha that had burned before.

259 ha Nong'an County fire, November 2025 7,095 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Changling County 长岭县 where it started

593 ha

0.1 %
Nong'an County 农安县

428 ha

0.1 %

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)
17 Mar	11.8 °C	21 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
18 Mar	0.6 °C	18 %	56 km/h	0.9 mm	Low 7
19 Mar	2.0 °C	21 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 8
20 Mar	2.8 °C	29 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
21 Mar after	11.7 °C	24 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
22 Mar after	10.5 °C	24 %	39 km/h	0.1 mm	Low 8
23 Mar after	12.6 °C	18 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
24 Mar after	16.3 °C	14 %	63 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
25 Mar after	15.0 °C	21 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
26 Mar after	12.9 °C	19 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
27 Mar after	11.9 °C	16 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
28 Mar after	14.9 °C	4 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
29 Mar after	11.6 °C	28 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
30 Mar after	11.0 °C	19 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 10 Mar 2026

After · 27 Mar 2026

Before After

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 · Copernicus

On 22 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 114 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 85: 5.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak114 µg/m³

Days over the guideline8 days

PM10130 µg/m³

Optical depth1.55

WHO 15

151617181920212223

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 17Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in China ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Changling County fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 March 2026 and 20 March 2026: 4 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 1,023 hectares (10.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Changling County (593 ha, 0.1 %); Nong'an County (428 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 11.8 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 14, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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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Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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.

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.

Where it burned