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Shizong County fire, 1 April 2024 师宗县 · Shizong County, Luoping County

Out · last measured on 4 Apr 2024

The fire started on 1 April 2024 in Shizong County, China, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,247 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 122th largest in Yunnan Province since 2016 (of 196 with a page). Number 140 in China in 2024, of 235.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Longlin Various Nationalities Autonomous County · 2023Qiubei County · 2021Shizong County · 2024Guangnan County · 2023

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
1,247ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
1 Apr 2024 – 4 Apr 2024
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
1 Apr
2024
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

35°high
73km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 5 Apr.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.8% of the area of London (12 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Shizong County 师宗县 where it started
    970 ha
    0.4 %
  2. Luoping County 罗平县
    280 ha
    0.1 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)

Started with Strong wind: 24 % of the area in China

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
1 Apr 33.1 °C 15 % 73 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
2 Apr 34.5 °C 13 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Apr 35.3 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Apr 34.8 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 42
5 Apr after 28.6 °C 37 % 46 km/h 2.1 mm Moderate 13

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 49.1, a minimum humidity of 15% and 2 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 19.

FWI at the start 49.1
Minimum humidity 15 %
Days without rain 2
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Longlin Various Nationalities Autonomous County fire, April 2023
2,144 ha 2 days FWI 49.0 Min. humidity 14 % 69 km away, in 2023

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.5 mm on 24 Apr.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

3 days
median duration
1,196 ha
median area
95 %
went past 1,000 ha
4.4 mm
rain at the end (median; 16 of 19 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (1,247 ha against a median of 1,196 ha) and lasted 4 days, against 3 days.

In 3 of 19, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 4.4 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

2.1 mmfirst rain
5 Aprthe day after it ended
73km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 4 Apr, and on 5 Apr 2.1 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 16 of 19, with a median of 4.4 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Mar 2024
After · 11 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 30 March 2024 the air beside the fire reached 45 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 31: 2.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak45 µg/m³
Days over the guideline8 days
PM1069 µg/m³
Optical depth1.13
30 Mar1 Apr3 Apr5 Apr7 Apr
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 Shizong County fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 April 2024 and 4 April 2024: 4 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 1,247 hectares (12.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Shizong County (970 ha, 0.4 %); Luoping County (280 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 73 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 19. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 1,196 ha; 95 % went past 1,000 ha. In 3 of 19, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 4.4 mm.

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 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.