Chitinsky District fire, 2 May 2025 Chitinsky District, Karymsky District
The fire started on 2 May 2025 in Chitinsky District, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 46 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 259,015 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.
Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:
- 53,650 haChitinsky District1 May 2025 · 29 days
- 45,760 haShilkinsky District2 May 2025 · 33 days
- 14,095 haYeravninsky Rayon7 June 2025 · 10 days
- 13,568 haChitinsky District2 May 2025 · 21 days
- 9,919 haKarymsky District6 May 2025 · 21 days
- 8,771 haChitinsky District20 May 2025 · 10 days
- 8,133 haChitinsky District3 May 2025 · 12 days
- 7,252 haKarymsky District28 May 2025 · 19 days
It is the largest fire in Zabaykalsky Krai since 2016 (of 465 with a page). The largest in Russia in 2025, of 246.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 259,015ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 46days
- 2 May 2025 – 16 Jun 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 2 May
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 17,164
- in a single hotspot: 892 MW
- Danger at start
- 8
- Low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 5.4GW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.5 mm on 17 Jun.
This area had burned before
8% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,054 ha in 2016, 446 ha in 2017, 1,931 ha in 2018, 469 ha in 2019, 14,917 ha in 2020, 789 ha in 2022, 333 ha in 2023, 2,337 ha in 2024.
- 3,623 ha Chitinsky District fire, April 2020 7,972 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,406 ha Karymsky District fire, May 2020 6,440 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,084 ha Chitinsky District fire, April 2020 3,992 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 581 ha Chitinsky District fire, April 2020 7,184 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 63 ha Chitinsky District fire, May 2024 15,278 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Moscow boundary: geoBoundaries · OpenStreetMap, Wambacher · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL 1.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
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 started163,744 ha reached on 2 May10 %
-
95,822 ha reached on 2 May12 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 1.3 hectares of built-up land and about 90 residents (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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 May | 8.4 °C | 12 % | 65 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 3 May | 7.2 °C | 15 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 4 May | 9.7 °C | 13 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 5 May | 11.6 °C | 13 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 6 May | 12.9 °C | 12 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 7 May | 11.0 °C | 25 % | 37 km/h | 2.0 mm | Very low 2 |
| 8 May | 11.8 °C | 13 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 9 May | 15.9 °C | 14 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 10 May | 19.9 °C | 23 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 11 May | 16.0 °C | 22 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 12 May | 19.1 °C | 28 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 13 May | 11.2 °C | 14 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 21 |
| 14 May | 6.9 °C | 30 % | 36 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 15 May | 8.1 °C | 17 % | 50 km/h | 1.0 mm | Low 11 |
| 16 May | 10.0 °C | 17 % | 33 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 17 May | 9.4 °C | 21 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 18 May | 8.2 °C | 25 % | 39 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 19 May | 10.4 °C | 17 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 20 May | 13.8 °C | 20 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 21 May | 14.9 °C | 18 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 22 May | 17.2 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 23 May | 20.0 °C | 22 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 24 May | 21.8 °C | 24 % | 49 km/h | 0.9 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 25 May | 22.2 °C | 19 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 26 May | 25.3 °C | 19 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 27 May | 26.8 °C | 17 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 28 May | 29.3 °C | 18 % | 67 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 29 May | 13.4 °C | 22 % | 56 km/h | 1.2 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 30 May | 12.3 °C | 30 % | 62 km/h | 4.7 mm | Very low 5 |
| 31 May | 11.8 °C | 21 % | 57 km/h | 0.8 mm | Low 9 |
| 1 Jun | 16.1 °C | 14 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 2 Jun | 12.3 °C | 51 % | 48 km/h | 9.9 mm | Very low 0 |
| 3 Jun | 17.3 °C | 29 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 5 |
| 4 Jun | 13.8 °C | 37 % | 62 km/h | 2.8 mm | Very low 4 |
| 5 Jun | 11.8 °C | 40 % | 69 km/h | 3.5 mm | Very low 3 |
| 6 Jun | 17.7 °C | 33 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 5 |
| 7 Jun | 17.9 °C | 17 % | 54 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 8 Jun | 15.3 °C | 22 % | 48 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 9 Jun | 21.3 °C | 17 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 10 Jun | 22.8 °C | 21 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 11 Jun | 20.3 °C | 30 % | 24 km/h | 3.1 mm | Very low 3 |
| 12 Jun | 22.6 °C | 28 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 13 Jun | 21.4 °C | 30 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 14 Jun | 22.1 °C | 20 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 15 Jun | 23.9 °C | 31 % | 56 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 26 |
| 16 Jun | 21.5 °C | 22 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 17 Jun after | 19.4 °C | 45 % | 30 km/h | 3.5 mm | Very low 3 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 24 May 2025 the air beside the fire reached 1,065 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 399: 27 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 17,164Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 3,992 haChitinsky District24 April 2020 · 9 days · 20 km away
- 7,972 haChitinsky District23 April 2020 · 18 days · 23 km away
- 7,184 haChitinsky District23 April 2020 · 9 days · 24 km away
- 8,653 haChitinsky District13 April 2025 · 13 days · 27 km away
- 6,440 haKarymsky DistrictMay 2020 · 15 days · 32 km away
- 5,140 haChitinsky District22 April 2020 · 17 days · 32 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Chitinsky District fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 May 2025 and 16 June 2025: 46 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 259,015 hectares (2,590.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Chitinsky District (163,744 ha, 10 %); Karymsky District (95,822 ha, 12 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 29.3 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 69 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, class Very 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
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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 8 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 17,164 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.
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.