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RU · Russia · –

Bilibinsky District fire, 24 June 2020 Bilibinsky District, Severo-Evensky Urban District

Out · last detection 1 Jul 2020, 03:32 UTC

The fire started on 24 June 2020 in Bilibinsky District, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,277 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 36th largest in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug since 2016 (of 56 with a page). Number 390 in Russia in 2020, of 592.

Burnt area
4,277ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
24 Jun 2020 – 1 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
24 Jun
2020
Heat detections
321
in a single hotspot: 61 MW
Danger at start
22
High · FWI index
Average daily power
501MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Jun1 Jul
1 Jul 2020

How it evolved, day by day

25 Jun 2020 · 8 MW · 4 26 Jun 2020 · 111 MW · 12 27 Jun 2020 · 1,085 MW · 96 28 Jun 2020 · 1,969 MW · 172 29 Jun 2020 · 24 MW · 4 30 Jun 2020 · 287 MW · 31 1 Jul 2020 · 20 MW · 2
25 Jun 28 Jun 1 Jul

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

The weather it burned in

23°high
59km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 2 Jul.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.7% of the area of London (43 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Bilibinsky District where it started
    3,885 ha reached on 25 Jun
    0.0 %
  2. 38 ha reached on 28 Jun
    0.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
24 Jun 22.2 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
25 Jun 22.6 °C 25 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
26 Jun 21.7 °C 45 % 59 km/h 0.3 mm High 29
27 Jun 18.0 °C 36 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Jun 14.3 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
29 Jun 15.6 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
30 Jun 13.8 °C 31 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
1 Jul 14.5 °C 39 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
2 Jul after 10.9 °C 59 % 28 km/h 1.7 mm Low 8

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 22.0, a minimum humidity of 26% and 2 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 18.

FWI at the start 22.0
Minimum humidity 26 %
Days without rain 2
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Bilibinsky District fire, June 2022
3,274 ha 5 days FWI 22.1 Min. humidity 29 % 185 km away, in 2022

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.8 mm on 21 Jun.

What happened to them

6 days
median duration
5,244 ha
median area
11 %
went past 10,000 ha
4.0 mm
rain at the end (median; 18 of 18 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (4,277 ha against a median of 5,244 ha) and lasted 8 days, against 6 days.

All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 4.0 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

1.7 mmfirst rain
2 Julthe day after it ended
59km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 1 Jul, and on 2 Jul 1.7 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 18 of 18, with a median of 4.0 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Jun 2020
After · 8 Jul 2020

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 · 321Every 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 Bilibinsky District fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 24 June 2020 to 1 July 2020 (8 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 June 2020 to 1 July 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,277 hectares (42.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bilibinsky District (3,885 ha, 0.0 %); Severo-Evensky Urban District (38 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 22.6 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 18. Their median duration was 6 days and their median area 5,244 ha; 11 % went past 10,000 ha. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 4.0 mm.

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 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Start date: 25 June 2020 → 24 June 2020.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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
What do you think is wrong?

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 25 June 2020 to 1 July 2020. 321 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.