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Arkharinsky District fire, 4 April 2018 Arkharinsky District

Out · last detection 7 Apr 2018, 03:28 UTC

The fire started on 4 April 2018 in Arkharinsky District, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,039 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 145th largest in Amur Oblast since 2016 (of 535 with a page). Number 117 in Russia in 2018, of 540.

Burnt area
11,039ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
4 Apr 2018 – 7 Apr 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
4 Apr
2018
Heat detections
384
in a single hotspot: 34 MW
Danger at start
4
Very low · FWI index
Energy released
3.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Apr 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Apr7 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

4567

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

The weather it burned in

15°high
74km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.5 mm on 11 Apr.

This area had burned before

21% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,228 ha in 2016, 44 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Arkharinsky District where it started
    10,934 ha reached on 4 Apr
    0.8 %

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)
30 Mar 14.5 °C 23 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
31 Mar 9.3 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
1 Apr 15.3 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
2 Apr 9.7 °C 35 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
3 Apr 1.6 °C 24 % 74 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 11
4 Apr -0.3 °C 21 % 67 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
5 Apr 2.5 °C 17 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
6 Apr 4.5 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
7 Apr 4.1 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm Low 6
8 Apr after 3.4 °C 40 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Low 5
9 Apr after 9.7 °C 25 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
10 Apr after 15.5 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
11 Apr after 5.1 °C 56 % 30 km/h 8.5 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Mar 2018
After · 14 Apr 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 · 384Every 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 Arkharinsky District fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 April 2018 and 7 April 2018: 4 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 11,039 hectares (110.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Arkharinsky District (10,934 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 15.3 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 74 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 11, class Moderate.
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.