Wangkui County fire, 11 October 2026 望奎县 · Hailun City, Wangkui County, Qinggang County
The fire started on 11 October 2026 in Wangkui County, China, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,141 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 305th largest in Heilongjiang Province since 2016 (of 1779 with a page). Number 195 in China in 2026, of 910.
The power measured by the satellite is low (7.8 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 3,141ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 6days
- 11 Oct 2026 – 16 Oct 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- counties
- Started on
- 11 Oct
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 23
- in a single hotspot: 8 MW
- Danger at start
- 14
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 39MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
51% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 179 ha in 2017, 350 ha in 2019, 381 ha in 2021, 161 ha in 2022, 841 ha in 2024, 74 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,613 ha that had burned before.
- 350 ha Hailun City fire, February 2019 1,223 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 74 ha Hailun City fire, November 2025 1,073 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 47 ha Wangkui County fire, April 2024 1,552 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Beijing (Dongcheng and Xicheng) boundary: geoBoundaries · Lee Beryman, OpenStreetMap · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL 1.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Hailun City 海伦市2,658 ha reached on 15 Oct0.6 %
-
461 ha reached on 11 Oct0.2 %
-
Qinggang County 青冈县0 ha0.0 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 26 hectares of built-up land and about 1,900 residents (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)
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 Oct | 18.8 °C | 30 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 12 Oct | 19.3 °C | 28 % | 50 km/h | 0.6 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 13 Oct | 12.1 °C | 32 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 14 Oct | 9.2 °C | 33 % | 39 km/h | 0.5 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 15 Oct | 10.6 °C | 27 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 16 Oct | 11.0 °C | 25 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 17 Oct after | 12.5 °C | 31 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
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 10 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 59 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 39: 2.6 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)
Detections table · 23Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 13,099 haWangkui County 望奎县26 March 2026 · 10 days · 12 km away
- 5,839 haWangkui County 望奎县8 April 2024 · 6 days · 13 km away
- 6,027 haQinggang County 青冈县25 March 2026 · 11 days · 17 km away
- 4,364 haHailun City 海伦市15 October 2026 · 2 days · 19 km away
- 9,720 haMingshui County 明水县27 March 2026 · 9 days · 33 km away
- 9,059 haQinggang County 青冈县26 March 2026 · 10 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Wangkui County fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 October 2026 to 16 October 2026 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 12 October 2026 to 16 October 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,141 hectares (31.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Hailun City (2,658 ha, 0.6 %); Wangkui County (461 ha, 0.2 %); Qinggang County (0 ha, 0.0 %).
- Is the Wangkui County fire still active?
- No fire detections since 16 Oct 2026, 05:33 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 19.3 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 18, 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 · 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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 12 October 2026 to 16 October 2026. 23 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.
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.