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Menghai County fire, 5 May 2019 Menghai County

Out · last measured on 10 May 2019

The fire started on 5 May 2019 in Menghai County, China, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,322 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

We are reviewing this page: some of its data look inconsistent (the place, the dates or the area), so treat them with caution.

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
1,322ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
5 May 2019 – 10 May 2019
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
5 May
2019
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

34°high
47km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

43% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 562 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Menghai County where it started
    109 ha
    0.0 %

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)
5 May 31.8 °C 37 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
6 May 30.5 °C 40 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
7 May 32.8 °C 26 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
8 May 33.5 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 May 34.2 °C 21 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 May 34.2 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 May after 34.6 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
12 May after 33.6 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 May after 32.5 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 May after 31.3 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 May after 33.4 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
16 May after 31.7 °C 33 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
17 May after 32.6 °C 34 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 May after 33.2 °C 27 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 May after 34.9 °C 25 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 May after 36.1 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Apr 2019
After · 17 May 2019

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 Menghai County fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 May 2019 and 10 May 2019: 6 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 1,322 hectares (13.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Menghai County (109 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.2 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, class Very 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.