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RU · Russia · –

Bolsheukovsky District fire, 11 May 2020 Bolsheukovsky District, Znamensky District

Out · last detection 14 May 2020, 20:43 UTC

The fire started on 11 May 2020 in Bolsheukovsky District, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,891 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 50th largest in Omsk Oblast since 2016 (of 148 with a page). Number 233 in Russia in 2020, of 592.

Burnt area
6,891ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
11 May 2020 – 14 May 2020
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
11 May
2020
Heat detections
287
in a single hotspot: 168 MW
Danger at start
22
High · FWI index
Average daily power
858MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 May14 May
14 May 2020

How it evolved, day by day

11 May 2020 · 15 MW · 6 12 May 2020 · 711 MW · 83 13 May 2020 · 1,612 MW · 105 14 May 2020 · 1,094 MW · 93
11 May 12 May 13 May 14 May

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
25km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.8 mm on 15 May.

This area had burned before

17% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,142 ha in 2018.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 4.4% of the area of London (69 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. Bolsheukovsky District where it started
    4,265 ha reached on 11 May
    0.4 %
  2. 2,568 ha reached on 12 May
    0.7 %

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)
11 May 29.3 °C 16 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
12 May 30.5 °C 19 % 14 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
13 May 31.7 °C 20 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
14 May 31.2 °C 23 % 23 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
15 May after 22.8 °C 54 % 38 km/h 3.8 mm Moderate 21

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 22.4, a minimum humidity of 16% and 9 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2018: 26.

FWI at the start 22.4
Minimum humidity 16 %
Days without rain 9
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Bolsheukovsky District fire, May 2023
3,585 ha 9 days FWI 25.7 Min. humidity 14 % 24 km away, in 2023

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

8 days
median duration
4,950 ha
median area
23 %
went past 10,000 ha
1.6 mm
rain at the end (median; 20 of 26 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (6,891 ha against a median of 4,950 ha) and lasted 4 days, against 8 days.

In 6 of 26, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.6 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

3.8 mmfirst rain
15 Maythe day after it ended
25km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 14 May, and on 15 May 3.8 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 20 of 26, with a median of 1.6 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 2018.
  • 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 · 4 May 2020
After · 21 May 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 · 287Every 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 Bolsheukovsky District fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 May 2020 and 14 May 2020: 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 6,891 hectares (68.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bolsheukovsky District (4,265 ha, 0.4 %); Znamensky District (2,568 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.7 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 25 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2018 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 26. Their median duration was 8 days and their median area 4,950 ha; 23 % went past 10,000 ha. In 6 of 26, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.6 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 287 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.