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Mulan County fire, April 2024 Mulan County

Out · last measured on 22 Apr 2024

The fire started on 21 April 2024 in Mulan County, China, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,234 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1254th largest in Heilongjiang Province since 2016 (of 1751 with a page). Number 158 in China in 2024, of 254.

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
1,234ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
2days
21 Apr 2024 – 22 Apr 2024
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
21 Apr
2024
Danger at start
11
Moderate · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

22°high
39km/h · peak gust
41%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

27% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4 ha in 2021, 331 ha in 2023.

What happened to each town

  1. Mulan County where it started
    1,235 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)
21 Apr 19.3 °C 41 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 11
22 Apr 22.1 °C 41 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
23 Apr after 18.8 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.3 mm Low 11
24 Apr after 17.9 °C 59 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm Low 9
25 Apr after 18.7 °C 25 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
26 Apr after 17.3 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
27 Apr after 15.1 °C 31 % 45 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 16
28 Apr after 12.7 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
29 Apr after 14.8 °C 23 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
30 Apr after 17.4 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 18
1 May after 23.1 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
2 May after 21.4 °C 11 % 55 km/h 0.2 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Apr 2024
After · 29 Apr 2024

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 21 April 2024 the air beside the fire reached 69 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 45: 3.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak69 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM10113 µg/m³
Optical depth1.52
19202122232425
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 Mulan County fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 April 2024 and 22 April 2024: 2 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 1,234 hectares (12.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mulan County (1,235 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 22.1 °C, humidity dropped to 41 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 12, 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

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.