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Aldansky Ulus fire, July 2018 Aldansky Ulus

Out · last detection 21 Jul 2018, 17:51 UTC

The fire started on 3 July 2018 in Aldansky Ulus, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,952 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 399th largest in Sakha Republic since 2016 (of 1422 with a page). Number 99 in Russia in 2018, of 540.

Burnt area
12,952ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
19days
3 Jul 2018 – 21 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
3 Jul
2018
Heat detections
1,111
in a single hotspot: 64 MW
Danger at start
17
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
7.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Jul 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Jul21 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

3456789101112131415161718192021

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
43km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 22 Jul.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Aldansky Ulus where it started
    13,058 ha reached on 3 Jul
    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)
3 Jul 30.4 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
4 Jul 30.7 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
5 Jul 31.0 °C 42 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
6 Jul 31.1 °C 40 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
7 Jul 31.3 °C 34 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
8 Jul 31.7 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
9 Jul 34.0 °C 34 % 24 km/h 0.2 mm High 23
10 Jul 31.9 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
11 Jul 28.3 °C 43 % 28 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 16
12 Jul 27.9 °C 42 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 17
13 Jul 30.3 °C 39 % 22 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 19
14 Jul 26.9 °C 57 % 21 km/h 9.2 mm Very low 1
15 Jul 24.8 °C 60 % 23 km/h 1.1 mm Very low 3
16 Jul 26.9 °C 51 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
17 Jul 28.8 °C 49 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 11
18 Jul 21.8 °C 29 % 34 km/h 4.5 mm Very low 4
19 Jul 22.4 °C 39 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
20 Jul 17.7 °C 57 % 22 km/h 1.5 mm Very low 4
21 Jul 26.0 °C 39 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
22 Jul after 27.1 °C 47 % 35 km/h 2.5 mm Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Jun 2018
After · 28 Jul 2018

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 · 1,111Every 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 Russia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Aldansky Ulus fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 July 2018 and 21 July 2018: 19 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 12,952 hectares (129.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Aldansky Ulus (13,058 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.0 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Russia (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: 112

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 112.

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 (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.