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Longjiang County fire, March 2023 Longjiang County

Out · last measured on 31 Mar 2023

The fire started on 29 March 2023 in Longjiang County, China, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,372 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 458th largest in Heilongjiang Province since 2016 (of 1751 with a page). Number 59 in China in 2023, of 280.

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
2,372ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
29 Mar 2023 – 31 Mar 2023
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
29 Mar
2023
Danger at start
22
High · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

22°high
53km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

83% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,971 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Longjiang County where it started
    2,354 ha
    0.4 %

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)
29 Mar 20.2 °C 13 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
30 Mar 18.3 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
31 Mar 22.3 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
1 Apr after 22.4 °C 16 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
2 Apr after 21.8 °C 25 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
3 Apr after 16.1 °C 18 % 46 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 21
4 Apr after 11.0 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
5 Apr after 11.1 °C 12 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
6 Apr after 13.1 °C 15 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
7 Apr after 3.5 °C 28 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
8 Apr after 15.6 °C 12 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
9 Apr after 20.3 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
10 Apr after 17.4 °C 20 % 62 km/h 0.1 mm High 35

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Mar 2023
After · 7 Apr 2023

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 2 April 2023 the air beside the fire reached 68 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 46: 3.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak68 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM1099 µg/m³
Optical depth1.53
2728293031123
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in China ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Longjiang County fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 March 2023 and 31 March 2023: 3 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 2,372 hectares (23.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Longjiang County (2,354 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 22.3 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 22, class High.
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.

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.