How long did the Chitinsky District fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 12 April 2020 to 1 May 2020 (20 days). The perimeter dates it from 15 April 2020 to 1 May 2020.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 54,243 hectares (542.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Chitinsky District (32,298 ha, 2.1 %); Yeravninsky Rayon (16,403 ha, 0.6 %); Khiloksky District (5,530 ha, 0.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 22.8 °C, humidity dropped to 4 % and gusts hit 73 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.

RU · Russia · 2020-04-12 → 2020-05-01

Chitinsky District fire, 12 April 2020 Chitinsky District, Yeravninsky Rayon, Khiloksky District

Out · last detection 1 May 2020, 05:54 UTC

The fire started on 12 April 2020 in Chitinsky District, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 54,243 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 11th largest in Zabaykalsky Krai since 2016 (of 465 with a page). Number 18 in Russia in 2020, of 592.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Yeravninsky Rayon · 2020 Yeravninsky Rayon · 2025 Chitinsky District · 2025 Chitinsky District · 2025

Burnt area: 54,243ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 20days; 12 Apr 2020 – 1 May 2020
Municipalities hit: 3; districts
Started on: 12 Apr; 2020
Heat detections: 3,506; in a single hotspot: 628 MW
Danger at start: 24; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 3.1GW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Apr1 May

Play back 1 May 2020

How it evolved, day by day

12 Apr 17 Apr 22 Apr 24 Apr 25 Apr 29 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

23°high

73km/h · peak gust

4%lowest humidity

It had gone 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 6 May.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 11 ha in 2017.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 34% of the area of London (542 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

Chitinsky District where it started

32,298 ha reached on 12 Apr

2.1 %
Yeravninsky Rayon

16,403 ha reached on 12 Apr

0.6 %
Khiloksky District

5,530 ha reached on 24 Apr

0.4 %

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 area0.97 ha

Residents≈ 70

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.97 hectares of built-up land and about 70 residents (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)
12 Apr	17.4 °C	4 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
13 Apr	7.1 °C	37 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
14 Apr	5.5 °C	31 %	40 km/h	0.7 mm	Low 9
15 Apr	10.9 °C	23 %	41 km/h	0.6 mm	Low 10
16 Apr	12.9 °C	21 %	29 km/h	0.3 mm	Low 11
17 Apr	14.2 °C	7 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
18 Apr	9.4 °C	27 %	55 km/h	1.3 mm	Low 8
19 Apr	-1.2 °C	27 %	38 km/h	0.3 mm	Low 9
20 Apr	-2.6 °C	20 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
21 Apr	1.3 °C	14 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
22 Apr	8.6 °C	15 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
23 Apr	13.7 °C	12 %	68 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
24 Apr	11.0 °C	10 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
25 Apr	13.3 °C	10 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
26 Apr	19.1 °C	11 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
27 Apr	16.7 °C	30 %	43 km/h	0.9 mm	Moderate 14
28 Apr	16.7 °C	9 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
29 Apr	17.8 °C	12 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
30 Apr	22.8 °C	23 %	73 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
1 May	18.5 °C	17 %	64 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
2 May after	9.9 °C	13 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
3 May after	11.5 °C	28 %	40 km/h	0.4 mm	High 23
4 May after	12.1 °C	28 %	46 km/h	0.1 mm	High 23
5 May after	16.8 °C	10 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
6 May after	19.6 °C	14 %	69 km/h	1.1 mm	High 32

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 5 Apr 2020

After · 8 May 2020

Before After

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 · 3,506Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Russia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Chitinsky District fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 12 April 2020 to 1 May 2020 (20 days). The perimeter dates it from 15 April 2020 to 1 May 2020.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 54,243 hectares (542.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Chitinsky District (32,298 ha, 2.1 %); Yeravninsky Rayon (16,403 ha, 0.6 %); Khiloksky District (5,530 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 22.8 °C, humidity dropped to 4 % and gusts hit 73 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.

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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

25 October 2026 Start date: 15 April 2020 → 12 April 2020.

RSS Changes to this page

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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; 4 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 15 April 2020 to 1 May 2020. 3,506 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.

Where it burned