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Balkhashskiy fire, 12 April 2019 Балқаш ауданы · Balkhashskiy

Out · last detection 15 Apr 2019, 06:57 UTC

The fire started on 12 April 2019 in Balkhashskiy, Kazakhstan, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,915 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 13th largest in Almaty Region since 2016 (of 36 with a page). Number 45 in Kazakhstan in 2019, of 163.

Burnt area
6,915ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
12 Apr 2019 – 15 Apr 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
12 Apr
2019
Heat detections
324
in a single hotspot: 102 MW
Danger at start
15
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
718MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

15 Apr 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Apr15 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

12 Apr 2019 · 213 MW · 80 13 Apr 2019 · 1,732 MW · 155 14 Apr 2019 · 790 MW · 76 15 Apr 2019 · 139 MW · 13
12 Apr 13 Apr 14 Apr 15 Apr

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

The weather it burned in

26°high
55km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.4 mm on 19 Apr.

This area had burned before

12% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,089 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 861 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Balkhashskiy Балқаш ауданы where it started
    6,904 ha
    0.2 %

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)
8 Apr 14.9 °C 16 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
9 Apr 18.0 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
10 Apr 11.6 °C 66 % 19 km/h 5.6 mm Very low 0
11 Apr 16.9 °C 40 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
12 Apr 17.7 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
13 Apr 21.5 °C 23 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
14 Apr 23.2 °C 22 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
15 Apr 26.4 °C 25 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
16 Apr after 17.0 °C 51 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
17 Apr after 22.2 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
18 Apr after 16.5 °C 27 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
19 Apr after 17.9 °C 34 % 51 km/h 3.4 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Apr 2019
After · 22 Apr 2019

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 · 324Every 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 Kazakhstan ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Balkhashskiy fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 April 2019 and 15 April 2019: 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 6,915 hectares (69.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Balkhashskiy (6,904 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 26.4 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 18, class Moderate.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Kazakhstan (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.