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Cona County fire, January 2019 China

Out · last measured on 20 Jan 2019

The fire started on 13 January 2019 in Cona County, China, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,747 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 12th largest in Tibet Autonomous Region since 2016 (of 30 with a page). Number 47 in China in 2019, of 206.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Cona County · 2017Cona County · 2024Cona County · 2021Cona County · 2016

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
1,747ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
13 Jan 2019 – 20 Jan 2019
Municipalities hit
0
counties
Started on
13 Jan
2019
Danger at start
6
Low · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

19°high
36km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.0 mm on 25 Jan.

This area had burned before

82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,509 ha in 2017.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.1% of the area of London (17 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.

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 Jan 18.4 °C 41 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
14 Jan 16.5 °C 46 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
15 Jan 17.3 °C 40 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
16 Jan 18.3 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
17 Jan 18.7 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
18 Jan 16.3 °C 45 % 32 km/h 0.4 mm Low 8
19 Jan 16.9 °C 46 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
20 Jan 17.8 °C 43 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
21 Jan after 18.2 °C 42 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
22 Jan after 17.5 °C 42 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
23 Jan after 18.0 °C 41 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
24 Jan after 18.3 °C 46 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
25 Jan after 16.7 °C 59 % 36 km/h 2.0 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Jan 2019
After · 27 Jan 2019

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 Cona County fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 January 2019 and 20 January 2019: 8 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 1,747 hectares (17.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 18.7 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 8, class Low.
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.