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Zhenlai County fire, 9 March 2016 Zhenlai County

Out · last detection 17 Mar 2016, 04:50 UTC

The fire started on 9 March 2016 in Zhenlai County, China, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,640 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 23th largest in Jilin Province since 2016 (of 812 with a page). The largest in China in 2016, of 180.

Burnt area
10,640ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
9 Mar 2016 – 17 Mar 2016
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
9 Mar
2016
Heat detections
572
in a single hotspot: 164 MW
Danger at start
1
Very low · FWI index
Energy released
3.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Mar 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Mar17 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

91011121314151617

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

The weather it burned in

16°high
61km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.7 mm on 1 Apr.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Zhenlai County where it started
    10,690 ha
    2.0 %

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)
7 Mar 0.0 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 1
8 Mar -2.2 °C 28 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
9 Mar -2.3 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
10 Mar -1.8 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
11 Mar -0.5 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
12 Mar 6.8 °C 18 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
13 Mar 1.0 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
14 Mar 5.7 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
15 Mar 14.1 °C 14 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
16 Mar 16.3 °C 14 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
17 Mar 14.9 °C 30 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
18 Mar after 4.9 °C 37 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
19 Mar after 8.6 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
20 Mar after 13.3 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
21 Mar after 7.5 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm Low 7
22 Mar after 5.9 °C 27 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
23 Mar after 6.5 °C 22 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
24 Mar after 7.8 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
25 Mar after 15.1 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
26 Mar after 13.4 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
27 Mar after 11.3 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
28 Mar after 15.3 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
29 Mar after 9.6 °C 22 % 49 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 15
30 Mar after 10.6 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
31 Mar after 14.0 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
1 Apr after 13.1 °C 34 % 67 km/h 3.7 mm Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Mar 2016
After · 24 Mar 2016

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 · 572Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in China ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Zhenlai County fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 March 2016 and 17 March 2016: 9 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 10,640 hectares (106.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Zhenlai County (10,690 ha, 2.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 16.3 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 61 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 12, 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.

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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 119.

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.