How long did the Xalx gol fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 April 2016 and 21 April 2016: 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 3,837 hectares (38.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Xalx gol (3,815 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 15.2 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 77 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 13, class Moderate.

Where does this data come from?

From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Mongolia (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

MN · Mongolia · 2016-04-20 → 2016-04-21

Xalx gol fire, April 2016 Xalx gol

Out · last detection 21 Apr 2016, 05:35 UTC

The fire started on 20 April 2016 in Xalx gol, Mongolia, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,837 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 9th largest in Dornod since 2016 (of 20 with a page). The largest in Mongolia in 2016, of 3.

Burnt area: 3,837ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 2days; 20 Apr 2016 – 21 Apr 2016
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 20 Apr; 2016
Heat detections: 197; in a single hotspot: 93 MW
Danger at start: 10; Low · FWI index
Energy released: 1.2GW; sum of detected power

Play back 21 Apr 2016

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Apr21 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

2021

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

The weather it burned in

15°high

77km/h · peak gust

25%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.7 mm on 22 Apr.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

Xalx gol where it started

3,815 ha reached on 20 Apr

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)
20 Apr	15.2 °C	28 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
21 Apr	11.1 °C	25 %	77 km/h	0.8 mm	Moderate 13
22 Apr after	1.9 °C	53 %	76 km/h	6.7 mm	Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 13 Apr 2016

After · 28 Apr 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 · 197Every 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 Mongolia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Xalx gol fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 April 2016 and 21 April 2016: 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 3,837 hectares (38.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Xalx gol (3,815 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 15.2 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 77 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 13, class Moderate.
Where does this data come from?: From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Mongolia (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: 105 · 101

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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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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 105 · 101.

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 ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). 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