Pingba County fire, February 2024 Pingba County
The fire started on 19 February 2024 in Pingba County, China, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,573 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 13th largest in Guizhou Province since 2016 (of 44 with a page). Number 97 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
- 1,573ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 2days
- 19 Feb 2024 – 20 Feb 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- counties
- Started on
- 19 Feb
- 2024
- Danger at start
- 16
- Moderate · FWI index
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 22 Feb.
This area had burned before
28% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 440 ha in 2019.
What happened to each town
-
Pingba County where it started1,578 ha1.6 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 Feb | 26.5 °C | 23 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 20 Feb | 28.5 °C | 5 % | 75 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 21 Feb after | 28.0 °C | 17 % | 56 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 26 |
| 22 Feb after | 7.6 °C | 71 % | 42 km/h | 1.4 mm | Very low 2 |
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 22 February 2024 the air beside the fire reached 108 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 36: 2.4 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)
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Pingba County fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 February 2024 and 20 February 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 1,573 hectares (15.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Pingba County (1,578 ha, 1.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 28.5 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 75 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, 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
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.