How long did the Karymsky District fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 May 2025 and 15 June 2025: 19 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 7,252 hectares (72.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Chitinsky District (4,391 ha, 0.3 %); Karymsky District (2,811 ha, 0.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 68 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, class Extreme.

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 · 2025-05-28 → 2025-06-15

Karymsky District fire, 28 May 2025 Chitinsky District, Karymsky District

Out · last detection 15 Jun 2025, 18:27 UTC

The fire started on 28 May 2025 in Karymsky District, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,252 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 177th largest in Zabaykalsky Krai since 2016 (of 465 with a page). Number 97 in Russia in 2025, of 246.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Karymsky District · 2017 Chitinsky District · 2025 Chitinsky District · 2025 Karymsky District · 2019

Burnt area: 7,252ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 19days; 28 May 2025 – 15 Jun 2025
Municipalities hit: 2; districts
Started on: 28 May; 2025
Heat detections: 480; in a single hotspot: 279 MW
Danger at start: 31; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 364MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 May15 Jun

Play back 15 Jun 2025

How it evolved, day by day

29 May 31 May 3 Jun 7 Jun 10 Jun 13 Jun

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

68km/h · peak gust

12%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.2 mm on 19 Jun.

This area had burned before

32% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,298 ha in 2017.

2,161 ha Karymsky District fire, April 2017 3,092 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 4.6% of the area of London (73 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

4,391 ha reached on 29 May

0.3 %
Karymsky District where it started

2,811 ha reached on 29 May

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 2025

Built-up area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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)
21 May	18.2 °C	17 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
22 May	20.6 °C	12 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
23 May	23.7 °C	17 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
24 May	25.7 °C	17 %	34 km/h	0.3 mm	High 30
25 May	26.2 °C	19 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
26 May	28.6 °C	16 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
27 May	30.4 °C	14 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
28 May	31.5 °C	18 %	68 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
29 May	17.4 °C	18 %	59 km/h	1.8 mm	Moderate 20
30 May	16.6 °C	33 %	59 km/h	3.1 mm	Low 8
31 May	16.3 °C	15 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
1 Jun	19.4 °C	19 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
2 Jun	14.4 °C	40 %	41 km/h	3.8 mm	Very low 4
3 Jun	19.2 °C	26 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
4 Jun	17.0 °C	28 %	65 km/h	1.2 mm	Moderate 17
5 Jun	16.7 °C	28 %	68 km/h	0.4 mm	High 28
6 Jun	21.8 °C	26 %	38 km/h	0.2 mm	High 23
7 Jun	22.1 °C	17 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
8 Jun	19.0 °C	26 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
9 Jun	24.0 °C	16 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
10 Jun	26.7 °C	16 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
11 Jun	22.6 °C	31 %	20 km/h	2.9 mm	Low 6
12 Jun	26.3 °C	23 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
13 Jun	25.0 °C	23 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
14 Jun	26.1 °C	20 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
15 Jun	27.7 °C	28 %	62 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 40
16 Jun after	25.0 °C	21 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
17 Jun after	16.8 °C	41 %	34 km/h	0.7 mm	Moderate 18
18 Jun after	20.2 °C	26 %	62 km/h	0.5 mm	High 34
19 Jun after	21.9 °C	31 %	60 km/h	3.2 mm	Moderate 11

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 21 May 2025

After · 22 Jun 2025

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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 10 June 2025 the air beside the fire reached 152 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 87: 5.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak152 µg/m³

Days over the guideline18 days

PM10153 µg/m³

Optical depth1.79

WHO 15

262728293031123456789101112131415161718

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 480Every 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 Karymsky District fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 May 2025 and 15 June 2025: 19 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 7,252 hectares (72.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Chitinsky District (4,391 ha, 0.3 %); Karymsky District (2,811 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 68 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, class Extreme.
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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

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.

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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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 480 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 2025, 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