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Matad fire, 26 March 2018 Matad

Out · last measured on 26 Mar 2018

The fire started on 26 March 2018 in Matad, Mongolia, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,296 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 30th largest in Dornod since 2016 (of 67 with a page). Number 3 in Mongolia in 2018, of 6.

Compare with…

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
4,296ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
1day
26 Mar 2018 – 26 Mar 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
26 Mar
2018
Danger at start
15
Moderate · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

13°high
52km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.2 mm on 5 Apr.

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 2.7% of the area of London (43 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. Matad where it started
    4,325 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)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
26 Mar 12.8 °C 18 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
27 Mar after 17.6 °C 20 % 76 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
28 Mar after 6.7 °C 19 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
29 Mar after 13.1 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
30 Mar after 12.9 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 11
31 Mar after 18.4 °C 27 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
1 Apr after 24.5 °C 12 % 65 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
2 Apr after 2.6 °C 15 % 53 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 17
3 Apr after 0.6 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
4 Apr after 4.5 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
5 Apr after 0.2 °C 14 % 76 km/h 3.2 mm Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Mar 2018
After · 2 Apr 2018

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Matad fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 March 2018 and 26 March 2018: 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 4,296 hectares (43.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Matad (4,325 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 12.8 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 15, class Moderate.
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.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.