Longjiang County fire, 18 March 2026 龙江县 · Longjiang County, Gannan County, Nianzishan District
The fire started on 18 March 2026 in Longjiang County, China, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 22,693 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 municipalities.
It is the 18th largest in Heilongjiang Province since 2016 (of 1854 with a page). Number 15 in China in 2026, of 999.
The power measured by the satellite is low (28.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 22,693ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 16days
- 18 Mar 2026 – 2 Apr 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 4
- counties
- Started on
- 18 Mar
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 549
- in a single hotspot: 29 MW
- Danger at start
- 6
- Low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 228MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 5 Apr.
This area had burned before
28% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,101 ha in 2019, 4,634 ha in 2020, 364 ha in 2022, 1,001 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,270 ha that had burned before.
- 1,857 ha Longjiang County fire, April 2020 3,060 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 871 ha Longjiang County fire, April 2024 1,123 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 727 ha Longjiang County fire, April 2020 1,665 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 92 ha Longjiang County fire, April 2020 2,028 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 65 ha Zhalantun fire, April 2020 1,362 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 25 ha Gannan County fire, April 2020 1,176 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 12 ha Longjiang County fire, April 2020 1,025 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5 ha Zhalantun fire, April 2020 1,002 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Beijing (Dongcheng and Xicheng) boundary: geoBoundaries · Lee Beryman, OpenStreetMap · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL 1.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
13,437 ha reached on 18 Mar2.3 %
-
Gannan County 甘南县9,171 ha reached on 22 Mar1.9 %
-
Nianzishan District 碾子山区92 ha reached on 26 Mar0.3 %
-
6 ha reached on 25 Mar0.0 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 152 hectares of built-up land and about 10,000 residents (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
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)
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 Mar | -4.6 °C | 16 % | 57 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 19 Mar | -3.2 °C | 25 % | 46 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very low 4 |
| 20 Mar | 6.2 °C | 25 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 3 |
| 21 Mar | 6.2 °C | 22 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 3 |
| 22 Mar | 9.6 °C | 15 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 23 Mar | 12.4 °C | 14 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 24 Mar | 13.5 °C | 26 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 25 Mar | 14.5 °C | 24 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 26 Mar | 12.3 °C | 25 % | 43 km/h | 0.2 mm | Low 10 |
| 27 Mar | 12.1 °C | 26 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 28 Mar | 12.6 °C | 20 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 29 Mar | 9.7 °C | 30 % | 53 km/h | 0.5 mm | Low 11 |
| 30 Mar | 12.1 °C | 18 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 31 Mar | 16.5 °C | 17 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 1 Apr | 9.0 °C | 16 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 2 Apr | 7.3 °C | 29 % | 27 km/h | 0.1 mm | Low 9 |
| 3 Apr after | 5.9 °C | 26 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 4 Apr after | 9.6 °C | 29 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 11 |
| 5 Apr after | 2.1 °C | 53 % | 37 km/h | 1.9 mm | Very low 1 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 24 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 108 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 66: 4.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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)
Detections table · 549Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 12,133 haLongjiang County 龙江县9 April 2020 · 7 days · 19 km away
- 8,053 haLongjiang County 龙江县22 March 2026 · 11 days · 24 km away
- 5,257 haLongjiang County 龙江县9 April 2020 · 7 days · 31 km away
- 14,703 haLongjiang County 龙江县11 April 2020 · 5 days · 32 km away
- 12,804 haLongjiang County 龙江县30 October 2025 · 9 days · 33 km away
- 8,958 haGannan County 甘南县30 March 2026 · 6 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Longjiang County fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 18 March 2026 to 2 April 2026 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 20 March 2026 to 2 April 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 22,693 hectares (226.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 4 municipalities: Longjiang County (13,437 ha, 2.3 %); Gannan County (9,171 ha, 1.9 %); Nianzishan District (92 ha, 0.3 %); Zhalantun (6 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 16.5 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 16, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Start date: 20 March 2026 → 18 March 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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 20 March 2026 to 2 April 2026. 549 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 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.