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Gorny Ulus fire, 22 June 2024 Gorny Ulus

Out · last detection 11 Jul 2024, 05:57 UTC

The fire started on 22 June 2024 in Gorny Ulus, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 23,338 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 196th largest in Sakha Republic since 2016 (of 1347 with a page). Number 50 in Russia in 2024, of 557.

Burnt area
23,338ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
22 Jun 2024 – 11 Jul 2024
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
22 Jun
2024
Heat detections
2,183
in a single hotspot: 401 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Average daily power
2.3GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Jun11 Jul
11 Jul 2024

How it evolved, day by day

23 Jun 2024 · 52 MW · 3 24 Jun 2024 · 52 MW · 16 25 Jun 2024 · 198 MW · 28 27 Jun 2024 · 153 MW · 26 28 Jun 2024 · 225 MW · 32 29 Jun 2024 · 568 MW · 60 30 Jun 2024 · 48 MW · 20 1 Jul 2024 · 3,505 MW · 124 2 Jul 2024 · 513 MW · 64 4 Jul 2024 · 3 MW · 1 5 Jul 2024 · 12 MW · 3 6 Jul 2024 · 422 MW · 71 7 Jul 2024 · 491 MW · 52 8 Jul 2024 · 16,966 MW · 425 9 Jul 2024 · 8,392 MW · 510 10 Jul 2024 · 5,762 MW · 531 11 Jul 2024 · 2,360 MW · 217
23 Jun 28 Jun 2 Jul 8 Jul 11 Jul

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
47km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.7 mm on 12 Jul.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 140 ha in 2020.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 15% of the area of London (233 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
    23,021 ha reached on 23 Jun
    0.5 %

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)
22 Jun 28.8 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
23 Jun 23.7 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
24 Jun 26.2 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
25 Jun 30.0 °C 28 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
26 Jun 21.5 °C 32 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
27 Jun 21.9 °C 32 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
28 Jun 20.2 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
29 Jun 24.8 °C 25 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
30 Jun 27.3 °C 45 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
1 Jul 31.4 °C 29 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Jul 28.8 °C 43 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 25
3 Jul 26.8 °C 28 % 43 km/h 3.1 mm Low 11
4 Jul 20.8 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
5 Jul 18.7 °C 37 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
6 Jul 21.5 °C 43 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
7 Jul 26.5 °C 30 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
8 Jul 29.0 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
9 Jul 28.3 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
10 Jul 28.6 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.7 mm High 27
11 Jul 29.2 °C 31 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
12 Jul after 25.5 °C 45 % 32 km/h 2.7 mm Low 7

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 27.1, a minimum humidity of 29% and 5 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 31.

FWI at the start 27.1
Minimum humidity 29 %
Days without rain 5
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Verkhnevilyuysky Ulus fire, July 2021
77,456 ha 22 days FWI 26.9 Min. humidity 30 % 237 km away, in 2021

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 8.2 mm on 15 Aug.

What happened to them

12 days
median duration
7,604 ha
median area
45 %
went past 10,000 ha
4.9 mm
rain at the end (median; 31 of 31 had it)

It was 3.1 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 20 days, against 12 days.

Only 7 of its 31 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 4.9 mm.

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

2.7 mmfirst rain
12 Julthe day after it ended
47km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 11 Jul, and on 12 Jul 2.7 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 31 of 31, with a median of 4.9 mm.

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 · 15 Jun 2024
After · 18 Jul 2024

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 12 July 2024 the air beside the fire reached 429 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 192: 13 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak429 µg/m³
Days over the guideline14 days
PM10615 µg/m³
Optical depth7.50
20 Jun25 Jun30 Jun5 Jul10 Jul
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 · 2,183Every 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 22 June 2024 and 11 July 2024: 20 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 23,338 hectares (233.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Gorny Ulus (23,021 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.4 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 47 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 31. Their median duration was 12 days and their median area 7,604 ha; 45 % went past 10,000 ha. Only 7 of its 31 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 4.9 mm.

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. 2,183 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.