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Dehui City fire, 29 March 2020 德惠市 · Dehui City

Out · last measured on 1 Apr 2020

The fire started on 29 March 2020 in Dehui City, China, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,725 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 141th largest in Jilin Province since 2016 (of 394 with a page). Number 122 in China in 2020, of 313.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Yushu City · 2022Dehui City · 2023Dehui City · 2025Dehui City · 2026

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
1,725ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
29 Mar 2020 – 1 Apr 2020
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
29 Mar
2020
Danger at start
14
Moderate · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

16°high
56km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

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.

What happened to each town

  1. Dehui City 德惠市 where it started
    1,722 ha
    0.6 %

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 2020
Built-up area30 ha
Residents≈ 750

Inside the perimeter there were about 30 hectares of built-up land and about 750 residents (GHSL 2020, 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.

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)

Started with Strong wind: 24 % of the area in China

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
29 Mar 14.6 °C 17 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
30 Mar 16.5 °C 22 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
31 Mar 12.4 °C 13 % 52 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 17
1 Apr 12.5 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
2 Apr after 15.4 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
3 Apr after 15.2 °C 21 % 70 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
4 Apr after 4.0 °C 20 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
5 Apr after 9.9 °C 9 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
6 Apr after 14.3 °C 18 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
7 Apr after 6.2 °C 24 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
8 Apr after 4.6 °C 58 % 45 km/h 0.2 mm Low 11
9 Apr after 11.0 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
10 Apr after 15.0 °C 12 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
11 Apr after 16.0 °C 17 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 22

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 14.3, a minimum humidity of 17% and 2 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 18.

FWI at the start 14.3
Minimum humidity 17 %
Days without rain 2
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Yushu City fire, April 2022
1,597 ha 3 days FWI 13.4 Min. humidity 17 % 102 km away, in 2022

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 15.1 mm on 21 Apr.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

3 days
median duration
1,265 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
11.5 mm
rain at the end (median; 17 of 18 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (1,725 ha against a median of 1,265 ha) and lasted 4 days, against 3 days.

In 1 of 18, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 11.5 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
56km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 1 Apr, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 17 of 18, with a median of 11.5 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Mar 2020
After · 8 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 Dehui City fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 March 2020 and 1 April 2020: 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 1,725 hectares (17.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Dehui City (1,722 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 16.5 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 17, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 18. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 1,265 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In 1 of 18, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 11.5 mm.

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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.