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Yilan County fire, March 2017 依兰县 · Yilan County

Out · last measured on 4 Apr 2017

The fire started on 29 March 2017 in Yilan County, China, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,564 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 879th largest in Heilongjiang Province since 2016 (of 1765 with a page). Number 113 in China in 2017, of 266.

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
1,564ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
29 Mar 2017 – 4 Apr 2017
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
29 Mar
2017
Danger at start
6
Low · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

21°high
54km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 34 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Yilan County 依兰县 where it started
    1,568 ha
    0.3 %

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)
29 Mar 8.8 °C 35 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
30 Mar 9.4 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
31 Mar 9.3 °C 24 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
1 Apr 11.3 °C 19 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
2 Apr 13.3 °C 31 % 54 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 13
3 Apr 16.9 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
4 Apr 20.8 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
5 Apr after 21.0 °C 25 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
6 Apr after 17.9 °C 34 % 41 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 14
7 Apr after 10.3 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
8 Apr after 11.6 °C 13 % 50 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 19
9 Apr after 13.4 °C 13 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
10 Apr after 19.0 °C 12 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
11 Apr after 7.7 °C 14 % 45 km/h 0.4 mm High 23
12 Apr after 4.8 °C 22 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
13 Apr after 12.1 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 20
14 Apr after 21.8 °C 10 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Mar 2017
After · 11 Apr 2017

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

Other fires nearby

All fires in China ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Yilan County fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 March 2017 and 4 April 2017: 7 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 1,564 hectares (15.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Yilan County (1,568 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 20.8 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 14, 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

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
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.

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.