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Mengla County fire, 4 April 2023 Mengla County

Out · last measured on 15 Apr 2023

The fire started on 4 April 2023 in Mengla County, China, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,540 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 21th largest in Yunnan Province since 2016 (of 380 with a page). Number 30 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
3,540ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
4 Apr 2023 – 15 Apr 2023
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
4 Apr
2023
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

34°high
50km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,307 ha in 2016, 235 ha in 2017, 1,196 ha in 2018, 2,410 ha in 2019, 1,790 ha in 2020, 1,171 ha in 2021, 257 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,154 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mengla County where it started
    1,378 ha
    0.2 %

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)
4 Apr 30.7 °C 26 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
5 Apr 31.8 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
6 Apr 32.0 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
7 Apr 31.7 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
8 Apr 28.9 °C 46 % 35 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 14
9 Apr 30.8 °C 40 % 35 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 19
10 Apr 33.7 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Apr 33.7 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Apr 33.6 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Apr 33.4 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Apr 34.3 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Apr 34.0 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 Apr after 32.1 °C 40 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
17 Apr after 34.2 °C 29 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Apr after 35.1 °C 26 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 Apr after 35.6 °C 21 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Apr after 35.1 °C 24 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Apr after 34.8 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Apr after 33.6 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Apr after 34.2 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
24 Apr after 32.1 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Apr after 33.8 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Mar 2023
After · 22 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 7 April 2023 the air beside the fire reached 795 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 468: 31 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak795 µg/m³
Days over the guideline17 days
PM101,136 µg/m³
Optical depth5.55
23456789101112131415161718
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 Mengla County fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 April 2023 and 15 April 2023: 12 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 3,540 hectares (35.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mengla County (1,378 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.3 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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.