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Aldansky Ulus fire, 5 July 2024 Aldansky Ulus

Out · last detection 9 Jul 2024, 18:16 UTC

The fire started on 5 July 2024 in Aldansky Ulus, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,418 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 592th largest in Sakha Republic since 2016 (of 1422 with a page). Number 197 in Russia in 2024, of 560.

Burnt area
8,418ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
5 Jul 2024 – 14 Jul 2024
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
5 Jul
2024
Heat detections
82
in a single hotspot: 139 MW
Danger at start
11
Low · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Jul 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Jul14 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

56789

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
44km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.3 mm on 15 Jul.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 102 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Aldansky Ulus where it started
    8,402 ha reached on 5 Jul
    0.0 %

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)
28 Jun 15.9 °C 45 % 40 km/h 1.3 mm Low 11
29 Jun 20.2 °C 36 % 28 km/h 2.6 mm Low 5
30 Jun 26.7 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
1 Jul 31.6 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.4 mm High 31
2 Jul 31.3 °C 43 % 42 km/h 2.0 mm Moderate 15
3 Jul 34.8 °C 33 % 38 km/h 1.2 mm High 24
4 Jul 28.1 °C 27 % 34 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 21
5 Jul 23.3 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
6 Jul 21.1 °C 39 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
7 Jul 23.5 °C 38 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
8 Jul 25.9 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
9 Jul 25.2 °C 37 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
10 Jul 21.2 °C 59 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
11 Jul 26.1 °C 43 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
12 Jul 28.1 °C 40 % 20 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 20
13 Jul 31.8 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
14 Jul 31.1 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 Jul after 20.1 °C 67 % 16 km/h 5.3 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Jun 2024
After · 21 Jul 2024

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 July 2024 the air beside the fire reached 1,080 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 672: 45 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak1,080 µg/m³
Days over the guideline11 days
PM101,542 µg/m³
Optical depth4.52
34567891011121314151617
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 · 82Every 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 5 July 2024 and 14 July 2024: 10 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 8,418 hectares (84.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Aldansky Ulus (8,402 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.8 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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.