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Gorny Ulus fire, 5 July 2017 Vilyuysky Ulus, Gorny Ulus, Verkhnevilyuysky Ulus

Out · last detection 24 Aug 2017, 17:57 UTC

The fire started on 5 July 2017 in Gorny Ulus, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 51 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 261,155 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 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:

It is the 5th largest in Sakha Republic since 2016 (of 1422 with a page). The largest in Russia in 2017, of 367.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Gorny Ulus · 2016Gorny Ulus · 2017

Burnt area
261,155ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
51days
5 Jul 2017 – 24 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
3
districts
Started on
5 Jul
2017
Heat detections
33,625
in a single hotspot: 1,196 MW
Danger at start
9
Low · FWI index
Average daily power
12.2GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Jul24 Aug
24 Aug 2017

How it evolved, day by day

5 Jul 2017 · 157 MW · 23 7 Jul 2017 · 78 MW · 7 8 Jul 2017 · 12 MW · 3 10 Jul 2017 · 96 MW · 12 11 Jul 2017 · 33 MW · 11 12 Jul 2017 · 20 MW · 15 13 Jul 2017 · 11 MW · 6 14 Jul 2017 · 426 MW · 100 15 Jul 2017 · 25 MW · 7 16 Jul 2017 · 307 MW · 99 18 Jul 2017 · 108 MW · 11 19 Jul 2017 · 1,389 MW · 72 20 Jul 2017 · 620 MW · 97 21 Jul 2017 · 1,440 MW · 166 22 Jul 2017 · 5,172 MW · 711 23 Jul 2017 · 171 MW · 39 25 Jul 2017 · 27 MW · 11 26 Jul 2017 · 448 MW · 98 27 Jul 2017 · 952 MW · 72 28 Jul 2017 · 125 MW · 11 29 Jul 2017 · 532 MW · 61 30 Jul 2017 · 2,249 MW · 260 31 Jul 2017 · 16,992 MW · 842 1 Aug 2017 · 487 MW · 217 2 Aug 2017 · 18,292 MW · 1653 3 Aug 2017 · 25,988 MW · 2007 4 Aug 2017 · 28,198 MW · 2339 5 Aug 2017 · 12,264 MW · 1687 6 Aug 2017 · 18,329 MW · 2722 7 Aug 2017 · 89,054 MW · 4572 8 Aug 2017 · 54,758 MW · 5109 9 Aug 2017 · 102,757 MW · 3593 11 Aug 2017 · 1 MW · 2 12 Aug 2017 · 670 MW · 232 13 Aug 2017 · 3,293 MW · 724 14 Aug 2017 · 51,412 MW · 2959 15 Aug 2017 · 111,250 MW · 2928 16 Aug 2017 · 23 MW · 5 17 Aug 2017 · 738 MW · 100 18 Aug 2017 · 2 MW · 1 19 Aug 2017 · 9 MW · 4 20 Aug 2017 · 30 MW · 13 21 Aug 2017 · 152 MW · 20 23 Aug 2017 · 1 MW · 2 24 Aug 2017 · 4 MW · 2
5 Jul 14 Jul 22 Jul 30 Jul 6 Aug 14 Aug 15 Aug 21 Aug

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

31°high
45km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.9 mm on 26 Aug.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 808 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

20 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.6 times the area of London (2,612 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. Vilyuysky Ulus
    120,675 ha reached on 7 Jul
    2.2 %
  2. Gorny Ulus where it started
    119,581 ha reached on 5 Jul
    2.6 %
  3. Verkhnevilyuysky Ulus
    11,963 ha reached on 6 Aug
    0.3 %

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)
5 Jul 19.4 °C 36 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
6 Jul 15.8 °C 53 % 30 km/h 2.1 mm Very low 4
7 Jul 24.0 °C 32 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 11
8 Jul 24.4 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
9 Jul 24.2 °C 38 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
10 Jul 27.7 °C 46 % 38 km/h 1.7 mm Low 10
11 Jul 22.5 °C 72 % 41 km/h 5.4 mm Very low 1
12 Jul 22.1 °C 48 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Low 5
13 Jul 16.6 °C 70 % 38 km/h 0.6 mm Low 6
14 Jul 22.3 °C 55 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
15 Jul 22.7 °C 52 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
16 Jul 20.4 °C 65 % 24 km/h 2.8 mm Very low 2
17 Jul 18.4 °C 57 % 34 km/h 3.4 mm Very low 1
18 Jul 21.1 °C 33 % 43 km/h 1.1 mm Low 6
19 Jul 21.6 °C 38 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
20 Jul 16.3 °C 37 % 43 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 14
21 Jul 14.7 °C 42 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
22 Jul 19.5 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
23 Jul 19.4 °C 60 % 27 km/h 1.4 mm Very low 5
24 Jul 14.8 °C 71 % 30 km/h 3.2 mm Very low 1
25 Jul 19.1 °C 38 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
26 Jul 23.3 °C 33 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
27 Jul 20.4 °C 64 % 36 km/h 6.7 mm Very low 1
28 Jul 15.2 °C 41 % 31 km/h 1.0 mm Very low 3
29 Jul 17.2 °C 38 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
30 Jul 21.2 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
31 Jul 28.5 °C 42 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
1 Aug 21.4 °C 48 % 45 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 12
2 Aug 25.8 °C 38 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
3 Aug 28.2 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
4 Aug 19.2 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
5 Aug 22.9 °C 32 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
6 Aug 25.2 °C 27 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
7 Aug 26.8 °C 29 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
8 Aug 28.9 °C 34 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
9 Aug 26.1 °C 44 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
10 Aug 20.9 °C 67 % 33 km/h 1.1 mm Low 8
11 Aug 21.0 °C 80 % 25 km/h 3.7 mm Very low 0
12 Aug 25.3 °C 60 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
13 Aug 26.9 °C 43 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
14 Aug 30.8 °C 37 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
15 Aug 29.5 °C 49 % 31 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 12
16 Aug 19.3 °C 60 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
17 Aug 15.9 °C 55 % 26 km/h 2.0 mm Very low 4
18 Aug 17.7 °C 48 % 25 km/h 1.3 mm Very low 4
19 Aug 17.8 °C 59 % 32 km/h 1.1 mm Low 5
20 Aug 19.0 °C 53 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
21 Aug 18.7 °C 39 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
22 Aug 14.1 °C 56 % 24 km/h 5.2 mm Very low 1
23 Aug 16.1 °C 67 % 29 km/h 0.9 mm Very low 3
24 Aug 17.2 °C 47 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
25 Aug after 13.7 °C 53 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
26 Aug after 13.7 °C 59 % 18 km/h 2.9 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Jun 2017
After · 31 Aug 2017

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 · 33,625Every 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 Gorny Ulus fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 5 July 2017 to 24 August 2017 (51 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 July 2017 to 20 August 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 261,155 hectares (2,611.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Vilyuysky Ulus (120,675 ha, 2.2 %); Gorny Ulus (119,581 ha, 2.6 %); Verkhnevilyuysky Ulus (11,963 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.8 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 22, 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

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 20 August 2017 → 24 August 2017.
  2. Start date: 11 July 2017 → 5 July 2017.

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?

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; 7 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 11 July 2017 to 20 August 2017. 33,625 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.