How long did the Qitai County fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 August 2016 and 30 September 2016: 38 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 1,093 hectares (10.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Qitai County (1,095 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 81, class Very extreme.

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.

CN · China · 2016-08-24 → 2016-09-30

Qitai County fire, August 2016 Qitai County

Out · last detection 30 Sept 2016, 20:34 UTC

The fire started on 24 August 2016 in Qitai County, China, and satellites saw it burning for 38 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,093 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 15th largest in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region since 2016 (of 19 with a page). Number 146 in China in 2016, of 180.

The power measured by the satellite is low (22.5 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 1,093ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 38days; 24 Aug 2016 – 30 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit: 1; counties
Started on: 24 Aug; 2016
Heat detections: 209; in a single hotspot: 22 MW
Danger at start: 48; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 682MW; sum of detected power

Play back 30 Sept 2016

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Aug30 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

24252829303112456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

36°high

56km/h · peak gust

8%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 2 Oct.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

Qitai County where it started

1,095 ha

0.1 %

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)
24 Aug	26.1 °C	15 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
25 Aug	31.2 °C	11 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
26 Aug	33.6 °C	8 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
27 Aug	32.3 °C	9 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 63
28 Aug	27.0 °C	30 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
29 Aug	33.6 °C	10 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
30 Aug	34.2 °C	9 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 65
31 Aug	31.9 °C	18 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 70
1 Sept	25.2 °C	23 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 64
2 Sept	26.4 °C	16 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
3 Sept	29.6 °C	9 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
4 Sept	30.1 °C	12 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
5 Sept	32.7 °C	13 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 61
6 Sept	32.0 °C	15 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 66
7 Sept	30.0 °C	20 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 64
8 Sept	29.8 °C	16 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
9 Sept	31.4 °C	11 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
10 Sept	30.1 °C	20 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
11 Sept	33.1 °C	16 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
12 Sept	33.3 °C	15 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
13 Sept	35.7 °C	11 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 63
14 Sept	28.7 °C	14 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 81
15 Sept	26.1 °C	17 %	35 km/h	0.1 mm	Extreme 56
16 Sept	27.2 °C	10 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
17 Sept	29.8 °C	10 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
18 Sept	31.7 °C	9 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
19 Sept	33.0 °C	10 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 62
20 Sept	31.6 °C	15 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
21 Sept	31.1 °C	17 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
22 Sept	26.8 °C	23 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
23 Sept	29.2 °C	20 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
24 Sept	20.2 °C	27 %	41 km/h	1.3 mm	High 25
25 Sept	21.2 °C	17 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
26 Sept	25.6 °C	13 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
27 Sept	22.6 °C	26 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
28 Sept	23.9 °C	16 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
29 Sept	25.3 °C	13 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
30 Sept	26.6 °C	18 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
1 Oct after	22.5 °C	25 %	39 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 47
2 Oct after	20.0 °C	32 %	62 km/h	1.5 mm	High 35

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 17 Aug 2016

After · 7 Oct 2016

Before After

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

Detections table · 209Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.

⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.

Date and time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in China ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Qitai County fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 August 2016 and 30 September 2016: 38 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 1,093 hectares (10.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Qitai County (1,095 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 81, class Very extreme.
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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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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.

Where it burned