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Lanxi County fire, 18 April 2021 兰西县 · Lanxi County, Hulan District

Out · last measured on 22 Apr 2021

The fire started on 18 April 2021 in Lanxi County, China, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,125 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 1446th largest in Heilongjiang Province since 2016 (of 1765 with a page). Number 193 in China in 2021, of 242.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Lanxi County · 2026Hulan District · 2017Hulan District · 2017Lanxi County · 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
1,125ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
18 Apr 2021 – 22 Apr 2021
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
18 Apr
2021
Danger at start
7
Low · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

24°high
58km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 28 Apr.

This area had burned before

60% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 266 ha in 2016, 591 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 670 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.7% of the area of London (11 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. Lanxi County 兰西县 where it started
    950 ha
    0.4 %
  2. Hulan District 呼兰区
    173 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)
18 Apr 13.9 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
19 Apr 17.8 °C 27 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
20 Apr 14.1 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
21 Apr 23.3 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
22 Apr 23.6 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 20
23 Apr after 16.9 °C 51 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm Low 11
24 Apr after 12.8 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
25 Apr after 15.1 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
26 Apr after 19.0 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
27 Apr after 17.6 °C 33 % 59 km/h 0.3 mm High 27
28 Apr after 13.6 °C 27 % 49 km/h 1.3 mm Low 11

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Apr 2021
After · 29 Apr 2021

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 Lanxi County fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 April 2021 and 22 April 2021: 5 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 1,125 hectares (11.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Lanxi County (950 ha, 0.4 %); Hulan District (173 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 23.6 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, 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.