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Братский район fire, 12 September 2016 Братский район

Out · last detection 26 Sept 2016, 20:06 UTC

The fire started on 12 September 2016 in Братский район, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,077 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 239th largest in Irkutsk Oblast since 2016 (of 421 with a page). Number 407 in Russia in 2016, of 692.

Burnt area
5,077ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
12 Sept 2016 – 26 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
12 Sept
2016
Heat detections
956
in a single hotspot: 62 MW
Danger at start
14
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
380MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Sept26 Sept
26 Sept 2016

How it evolved, day by day

12 Sept 2016 · 3 MW · 1 13 Sept 2016 · 125 MW · 22 14 Sept 2016 · 526 MW · 83 15 Sept 2016 · 842 MW · 112 16 Sept 2016 · 366 MW · 69 17 Sept 2016 · 277 MW · 53 18 Sept 2016 · 473 MW · 78 19 Sept 2016 · 773 MW · 151 20 Sept 2016 · 859 MW · 152 21 Sept 2016 · 609 MW · 88 22 Sept 2016 · 422 MW · 74 23 Sept 2016 · 206 MW · 33 24 Sept 2016 · 111 MW · 23 25 Sept 2016 · 82 MW · 13 26 Sept 2016 · 22 MW · 4
12 Sept 15 Sept 20 Sept 24 Sept

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
42km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 29 Sept.

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 3.2% of the area of London (51 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. Братский район where it started
    5,116 ha reached on 12 Sept
    0.2 %

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 2015
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, 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)
12 Sept 21.4 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
13 Sept 18.7 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
14 Sept 19.0 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
15 Sept 19.8 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
16 Sept 20.5 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
17 Sept 21.9 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
18 Sept 23.2 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
19 Sept 20.2 °C 39 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
20 Sept 17.8 °C 37 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
21 Sept 17.6 °C 44 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
22 Sept 14.3 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
23 Sept 12.6 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
24 Sept 12.6 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
25 Sept 9.2 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
26 Sept 10.6 °C 29 % 14 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
27 Sept after 13.9 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
28 Sept after 13.4 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
29 Sept after 7.1 °C 66 % 45 km/h 2.5 mm Low 7

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 14.1, a minimum humidity of 33% and 8 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 21.

FWI at the start 14.1
Minimum humidity 33 %
Days without rain 8
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Братский район fire, June 2016
5,317 ha 17 days FWI 13.4 Min. humidity 31 % 32 km away, in 2016

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 5.9 mm on 3 Jul.

What happened to them

12 days
median duration
5,037 ha
median area
19 %
went past 10,000 ha
7.5 mm
rain at the end (median; 21 of 21 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (5,077 ha against a median of 5,037 ha) and lasted 15 days, against 12 days.

All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 7.5 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

2.5 mmfirst rain
29 Sept3 days after it ended
42km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 26 Sept, and on 29 Sept 2.5 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 21 of 21, with a median of 7.5 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 · 5 Sept 2016
After · 3 Oct 2016

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 · 956Every 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 Братский район fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 September 2016 and 26 September 2016: 15 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 5,077 hectares (50.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Братский район (5,116 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 23.2 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, 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.
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: 21. Their median duration was 12 days and their median area 5,037 ha; 19 % 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 7.5 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. 956 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 2015, 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.