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KZ · Kazakhstan · –

Ekibastuz fire, 10 June 2020 Екібастұз · Ekibastuz, Aksuskiy

Out · last detection 12 Jun 2020, 07:48 UTC

The fire started on 10 June 2020 in Ekibastuz, Kazakhstan, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,698 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 27th largest in Pavlodar Region since 2016 (of 39 with a page). Number 39 in Kazakhstan in 2020, of 60.

The power measured by the satellite is low (15.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…
Burnt area
3,698ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
10 Jun 2020 – 12 Jun 2020
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
10 Jun
2020
Heat detections
157
in a single hotspot: 15 MW
Danger at start
52
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
216MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Jun12 Jun
12 Jun 2020

How it evolved, day by day

10 Jun 2020 · 17 MW · 10 11 Jun 2020 · 501 MW · 132 12 Jun 2020 · 131 MW · 15
10 Jun 11 Jun 12 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

33°high
46km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 35 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 17 Jun.

This area had burned before

5% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 180 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.3% of the area of London (37 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. Ekibastuz Екібастұз where it started
    3,120 ha reached on 10 Jun
    0.2 %
  2. 562 ha reached on 11 Jun
    0.1 %

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)
9 Jun 28.8 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
10 Jun 28.9 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 49
11 Jun 29.8 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Jun 32.9 °C 17 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Jun after 34.5 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.5 mm Extreme 51
14 Jun after 23.1 °C 22 % 47 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 58
15 Jun after 20.7 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.9 mm High 30
16 Jun after 21.9 °C 24 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Jun after 24.1 °C 22 % 48 km/h 1.5 mm High 31

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 52.5, a minimum humidity of 17% and 35 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 4.

FWI at the start 52.5
Minimum humidity 17 %
Days without rain 35
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Ekibastuz fire, May 2016
3,534 ha 3 days FWI 53.6 Min. humidity 17 % 9 km away, in 2016

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.5 mm on 29 May.

What happened to them

Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 4. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.

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

1.5 mmfirst rain
17 Jun5 days after it ended
46km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 12 Jun, and on 17 Jun 1.5 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out.

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 · 3 Jun 2020
After · 19 Jun 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 · 157Every 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 Kazakhstan

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ekibastuz fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 June 2020 and 12 June 2020: 3 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 3,698 hectares (37.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ekibastuz (3,120 ha, 0.2 %); Aksuskiy (562 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.9 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Kazakhstan (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.

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. 157 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.