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CN · China · –

Zhenlai County fire, 11 November 2025 镇赉县 · Zhenlai County, Dorbod-Mongol Autonomous County

Out · last detection 22 Nov 2025, 04:35 UTC

The fire started on 11 November 2025 in Zhenlai County, China, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 28,418 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

Number 3 in China in 2025, of 578.

GWIS near-real-time perimeter, from the layer that changed in October 2025: this fire is not compared with fires from earlier years, because since then the GWIS layer gives more and larger perimeters.

Burnt area
28,418ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
11 Nov 2025 – 23 Nov 2025
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
11 Nov
2025
Heat detections
683
in a single hotspot: 47 MW
Danger at start
13
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
402MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Nov23 Nov
22 Nov 2025

How it evolved, day by day

11 Nov 2025 · 13 MW · 4 12 Nov 2025 · 26 MW · 6 13 Nov 2025 · 37 MW · 10 14 Nov 2025 · 10 MW · 3 15 Nov 2025 · 2 MW · 1 16 Nov 2025 · 1,316 MW · 167 18 Nov 2025 · 10 MW · 3 19 Nov 2025 · 1,066 MW · 160 20 Nov 2025 · 781 MW · 138 21 Nov 2025 · 93 MW · 8 22 Nov 2025 · 1,071 MW · 183
11 Nov 16 Nov 21 Nov

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

Fire front film How it spread from one satellite pass to the next (15 passes) and with what wind. Watch the film

The weather it burned in

12°high
54km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 11,992 ha in 2016, 13,461 ha in 2017, 6,312 ha in 2018, 2,422 ha in 2019, 13,658 ha in 2020, 14,957 ha in 2021, 622 ha in 2022, 2,918 ha in 2023, 18,992 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 26,765 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 18% of the area of London (284 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. Zhenlai County 镇赉县 where it started
    28,649 ha reached on 11 Nov
    5.4 %
  2. Dorbod-Mongol Autonomous County 杜尔伯特蒙古族自治县
    1 ha
    0.0 %

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 2025
Built-up area83 ha
Residents≈ 3,200

Inside the perimeter there were about 83 hectares of built-up land and about 3,200 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)
3 Nov 7.9 °C 31 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
4 Nov 11.8 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
5 Nov 10.7 °C 45 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
6 Nov 10.7 °C 34 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
7 Nov 0.3 °C 35 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
8 Nov 1.9 °C 55 % 40 km/h 0.9 mm Very low 5
9 Nov 1.9 °C 35 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
10 Nov -0.1 °C 42 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
11 Nov 5.2 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
12 Nov 8.0 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
13 Nov 3.5 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
14 Nov 1.6 °C 27 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
15 Nov 4.1 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
16 Nov 0.5 °C 33 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
17 Nov -2.8 °C 32 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
18 Nov -1.0 °C 36 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
19 Nov 7.2 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
20 Nov 2.3 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
21 Nov 2.9 °C 31 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
22 Nov 9.1 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
23 Nov 5.2 °C 45 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
24 Nov after 0.0 °C 39 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
25 Nov after -2.9 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
26 Nov after -2.5 °C 40 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
27 Nov after -4.4 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
28 Nov after -2.7 °C 40 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
29 Nov after -0.1 °C 50 % 41 km/h 0.4 mm Low 9
30 Nov after -3.9 °C 40 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
1 Dec after -7.9 °C 32 % 46 km/h 0.4 mm Low 10
2 Dec after -13.5 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
3 Dec after -14.5 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
4 Dec after -8.7 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
5 Dec after -0.9 °C 37 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
6 Dec after -0.6 °C 39 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
7 Dec after -5.2 °C 60 % 33 km/h 0.6 mm Low 6
8 Dec after -4.8 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
9 Dec after -7.4 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Nov 2025
After · 30 Nov 2025

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 15 November 2025 the air beside the fire reached 63 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 33: 2.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak63 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM1074 µg/m³
Optical depth0.79
9 Nov13 Nov17 Nov21 Nov25 Nov
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)

Detections table · 683Every 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 11 November 2025 and 23 November 2025: 13 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 28,418 hectares (284.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Zhenlai County (28,649 ha, 5.4 %); Dorbod-Mongol Autonomous County (1 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 11.8 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 15, 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.

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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 683 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.