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Gorny Ulus fire, 2 July 2021 Gorny Ulus

Out · last detection 15 Aug 2021, 05:26 UTC

The fire started on 2 July 2021 in Gorny Ulus, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 45 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 125,710 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

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 27th largest in Sakha Republic since 2016 (of 1422 with a page). Number 12 in Russia in 2021, of 581.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Gorny Ulus · 2017Gorny Ulus · 2024Gorny Ulus · 2024Vilyuysky Ulus · 2024

Burnt area
125,710ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
45days
2 Jul 2021 – 15 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
2 Jul
2021
Heat detections
19,331
in a single hotspot: 407 MW
Danger at start
19
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
4.6GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Jul15 Aug
15 Aug 2021

How it evolved, day by day

2 Jul 2021 · 82 MW · 28 3 Jul 2021 · 565 MW · 70 4 Jul 2021 · 71 MW · 21 5 Jul 2021 · 7 MW · 1 6 Jul 2021 · 57 MW · 13 7 Jul 2021 · 1,014 MW · 180 8 Jul 2021 · 8,212 MW · 345 9 Jul 2021 · 119 MW · 14 11 Jul 2021 · 1,641 MW · 191 12 Jul 2021 · 2,153 MW · 338 13 Jul 2021 · 1,608 MW · 265 14 Jul 2021 · 5,094 MW · 486 15 Jul 2021 · 383 MW · 47 16 Jul 2021 · 8,163 MW · 1367 17 Jul 2021 · 5,096 MW · 602 18 Jul 2021 · 4,452 MW · 542 19 Jul 2021 · 919 MW · 121 20 Jul 2021 · 3,545 MW · 217 21 Jul 2021 · 1 MW · 2 22 Jul 2021 · 917 MW · 210 23 Jul 2021 · 55 MW · 10 25 Jul 2021 · 120 MW · 42 26 Jul 2021 · 1,538 MW · 304 27 Jul 2021 · 9,954 MW · 1429 28 Jul 2021 · 9,080 MW · 1205 29 Jul 2021 · 11,364 MW · 1016 30 Jul 2021 · 25,530 MW · 1246 31 Jul 2021 · 4,034 MW · 712 1 Aug 2021 · 2,420 MW · 338 2 Aug 2021 · 3,489 MW · 643 3 Aug 2021 · 315 MW · 25 4 Aug 2021 · 416 MW · 185 5 Aug 2021 · 3,741 MW · 632 6 Aug 2021 · 5,107 MW · 781 7 Aug 2021 · 20,529 MW · 1170 8 Aug 2021 · 18,510 MW · 1612 9 Aug 2021 · 26,865 MW · 1512 10 Aug 2021 · 6,111 MW · 468 11 Aug 2021 · 861 MW · 109 12 Aug 2021 · 1,671 MW · 399 13 Aug 2021 · 481 MW · 175 14 Aug 2021 · 2,340 MW · 205 15 Aug 2021 · 448 MW · 53
2 Jul 9 Jul 17 Jul 25 Jul 1 Aug 8 Aug 9 Aug 15 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

33°high
52km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 12.3 mm on 16 Aug.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 79% of the area of London (1,257 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. Gorny Ulus where it started
    125,564 ha reached on 2 Jul
    2.8 %

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)
2 Jul 33.0 °C 25 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
3 Jul 31.4 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
4 Jul 25.5 °C 58 % 34 km/h 5.4 mm Very low 1
5 Jul 22.7 °C 48 % 43 km/h 1.6 mm Very low 3
6 Jul 27.1 °C 35 % 29 km/h 0.6 mm Low 8
7 Jul 30.1 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
8 Jul 32.1 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
9 Jul 24.2 °C 44 % 41 km/h 3.2 mm Very low 4
10 Jul 17.1 °C 59 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
11 Jul 19.3 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
12 Jul 22.3 °C 39 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
13 Jul 24.3 °C 35 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
14 Jul 27.8 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
15 Jul 23.8 °C 52 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
16 Jul 22.6 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 20
17 Jul 27.0 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
18 Jul 27.0 °C 44 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
19 Jul 29.4 °C 49 % 36 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 15
20 Jul 24.8 °C 40 % 28 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 17
21 Jul 20.6 °C 62 % 25 km/h 4.1 mm Very low 2
22 Jul 26.0 °C 39 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
23 Jul 24.3 °C 50 % 23 km/h 0.6 mm Low 9
24 Jul 23.7 °C 48 % 36 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 11
25 Jul 24.5 °C 38 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
26 Jul 30.3 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
27 Jul 28.9 °C 40 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
28 Jul 24.0 °C 42 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
29 Jul 22.3 °C 31 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
30 Jul 23.7 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
31 Jul 26.2 °C 27 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
1 Aug 27.5 °C 31 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
2 Aug 27.9 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
3 Aug 22.8 °C 53 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
4 Aug 23.3 °C 52 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
5 Aug 27.5 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
6 Aug 25.5 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
7 Aug 23.6 °C 40 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
8 Aug 24.1 °C 47 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
9 Aug 27.0 °C 42 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
10 Aug 27.8 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
11 Aug 24.2 °C 59 % 28 km/h 2.0 mm Low 6
12 Aug 25.6 °C 43 % 22 km/h 2.2 mm Low 5
13 Aug 25.8 °C 51 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
14 Aug 27.5 °C 49 % 22 km/h 2.9 mm Low 5
15 Aug 25.5 °C 58 % 37 km/h 2.4 mm Very low 4
16 Aug after 22.7 °C 72 % 37 km/h 12.3 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Jun 2021
After · 22 Aug 2021

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 · 19,331Every 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?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 July 2021 and 15 August 2021: 45 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 125,710 hectares (1,257.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Gorny Ulus (125,564 ha, 2.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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 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.

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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 19,331 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.