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Aldansky Ulus fire, 29 June 2023 Aldansky Ulus

Out · last detection 13 Jul 2023, 04:17 UTC

The fire started on 29 June 2023 in Aldansky Ulus, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,780 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 477th largest in Sakha Republic since 2016 (of 1422 with a page). Number 93 in Russia in 2023, of 452.

Burnt area
10,780ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
29 Jun 2023 – 13 Jul 2023
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
29 Jun
2023
Heat detections
877
in a single hotspot: 165 MW
Danger at start
20
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
9.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Jul 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Jun13 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

2930123478910111213

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
61km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 10.1 mm on 14 Jul.

This area had burned before

25% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,038 ha in 2018, 697 ha in 2022.

What happened to each town

  1. Aldansky Ulus where it started
    10,898 ha reached on 29 Jun
    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)
29 Jun 29.3 °C 44 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
30 Jun 32.9 °C 35 % 20 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 19
1 Jul 34.5 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
2 Jul 34.1 °C 27 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
3 Jul 32.7 °C 35 % 29 km/h 1.4 mm Moderate 20
4 Jul 32.5 °C 36 % 16 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 21
5 Jul 30.5 °C 40 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
6 Jul 30.9 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm High 23
7 Jul 30.1 °C 25 % 22 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
8 Jul 24.2 °C 40 % 61 km/h 4.0 mm Low 9
9 Jul 19.7 °C 32 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
10 Jul 26.7 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
11 Jul 31.2 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
12 Jul 32.8 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Jul 26.8 °C 50 % 37 km/h 2.6 mm Low 8
14 Jul after 13.4 °C 84 % 27 km/h 10.1 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Jun 2023
After · 20 Jul 2023

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 13 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 428 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 153: 10 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak428 µg/m³
Days over the guideline15 days
PM10611 µg/m³
Optical depth6.53
2728293012345678910111213141516
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 · 877Every 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 29 June 2023 and 13 July 2023: 15 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 10,780 hectares (107.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Aldansky Ulus (10,898 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 61 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, 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.

Report an error
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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.