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MN · Mongolia ·

Erdenecagaan fire, 19 April 2022 Erdenecagaan

Out · last measured on 19 Apr 2022

The fire started on 19 April 2022 in Erdenecagaan, Mongolia, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,246 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 6th largest in Sükhbaatar since 2016 (of 15 with a page). Number 9 in Mongolia in 2022, of 18.

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
4,246ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
1day
19 Apr 2022 – 19 Apr 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
19 Apr
2022
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

20°high
74km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 21 Apr.

This area had burned before

7% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 281 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.7% of the area of London (42 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. Erdenecagaan where it started
    4,213 ha
    0.2 %

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 area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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: 56 % of the area in Mongolia Very dry air: 38 % of the area in Mongolia

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
19 Apr 19.9 °C 12 % 74 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 Apr after 15.8 °C 14 % 63 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
21 Apr after 4.6 °C 25 % 48 km/h 1.7 mm Very low 5

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 33.1, a minimum humidity of 12% and 5 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 14.

FWI at the start 33.1
Minimum humidity 12 %
Days without rain 5
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Erdenecagaan fire, May 2016
4,880 ha 1 day FWI 35.5 Min. humidity 14 % 100 km away, in 2016

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 14. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.

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

1.7 mmfirst rain
21 Apr2 days after it ended
74km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 19 Apr, and on 21 Apr 1.7 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out.

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 · 12 Apr 2022
After · 26 Apr 2022

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 Mongolia

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Erdenecagaan fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 April 2022 and 19 April 2022: 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 4,246 hectares (42.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Erdenecagaan (4,213 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 19.9 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 74 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Mongolia (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: 105 · 101 · 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.

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 105 · 101.

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 ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). 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.