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Katangsky Rayon fire, 15 July 2016 Katangsky Rayon

Out · last detection 21 Aug 2016, 19:40 UTC

The fire started on 15 July 2016 in Katangsky Rayon, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 38 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,133 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 65th largest in Irkutsk Oblast since 2016 (of 428 with a page). Number 108 in Russia in 2016, of 692.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Katangsky Rayon · 2016Katangsky Rayon · 2017Katangsky Rayon · 2018Katangsky Rayon · 2018

Burnt area
16,133ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
38days
15 Jul 2016 – 21 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
15 Jul
2016
Heat detections
2,757
in a single hotspot: 502 MW
Danger at start
16
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
1.0GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Jul21 Aug
21 Aug 2016

How it evolved, day by day

15 Jul 2016 · 10 MW · 4 16 Jul 2016 · 266 MW · 21 17 Jul 2016 · 721 MW · 37 18 Jul 2016 · 1,337 MW · 26 19 Jul 2016 · 15 MW · 10 20 Jul 2016 · 1,104 MW · 65 21 Jul 2016 · 229 MW · 31 22 Jul 2016 · 241 MW · 46 23 Jul 2016 · 2,800 MW · 175 24 Jul 2016 · 411 MW · 59 25 Jul 2016 · 5,976 MW · 259 26 Jul 2016 · 2,623 MW · 154 27 Jul 2016 · 201 MW · 47 28 Jul 2016 · 539 MW · 33 29 Jul 2016 · 58 MW · 13 30 Jul 2016 · 359 MW · 28 31 Jul 2016 · 18 MW · 3 2 Aug 2016 · 1 MW · 1 3 Aug 2016 · 239 MW · 23 4 Aug 2016 · 1,785 MW · 107 5 Aug 2016 · 4 MW · 5 6 Aug 2016 · 117 MW · 50 7 Aug 2016 · 2,594 MW · 233 8 Aug 2016 · 1,213 MW · 101 9 Aug 2016 · 70 MW · 38 10 Aug 2016 · 25 MW · 4 11 Aug 2016 · 1,204 MW · 66 12 Aug 2016 · 10 MW · 3 14 Aug 2016 · 811 MW · 181 15 Aug 2016 · 5,042 MW · 317 16 Aug 2016 · 2,183 MW · 243 17 Aug 2016 · 1,695 MW · 218 18 Aug 2016 · 1,637 MW · 152 20 Aug 2016 · 1 MW · 1 21 Aug 2016 · 4 MW · 3
15 Jul 20 Jul 25 Jul 30 Jul 5 Aug 10 Aug 16 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

27°high
59km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.6 mm on 24 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 10% of the area of London (161 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. Katangsky Rayon where it started
    14,931 ha
    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 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)
15 Jul 21.5 °C 33 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
16 Jul 20.4 °C 38 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 21
17 Jul 19.8 °C 31 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
18 Jul 15.5 °C 57 % 34 km/h 0.8 mm Low 10
19 Jul 18.6 °C 47 % 25 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 12
20 Jul 22.5 °C 32 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
21 Jul 23.0 °C 38 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
22 Jul 22.0 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
23 Jul 23.6 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
24 Jul 24.4 °C 42 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
25 Jul 24.8 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
26 Jul 27.2 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
27 Jul 26.0 °C 40 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
28 Jul 26.0 °C 45 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
29 Jul 19.4 °C 50 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
30 Jul 22.4 °C 43 % 32 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 21
31 Jul 23.1 °C 56 % 42 km/h 0.2 mm High 21
1 Aug 18.0 °C 64 % 44 km/h 3.9 mm Very low 4
2 Aug 18.2 °C 50 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
3 Aug 21.3 °C 35 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
4 Aug 21.9 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
5 Aug 19.9 °C 53 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
6 Aug 23.3 °C 53 % 32 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 13
7 Aug 26.2 °C 38 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
8 Aug 24.2 °C 46 % 18 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 14
9 Aug 19.3 °C 75 % 25 km/h 7.9 mm Very low 0
10 Aug 18.9 °C 70 % 34 km/h 3.5 mm Very low 0
11 Aug 17.4 °C 55 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
12 Aug 14.7 °C 55 % 35 km/h 3.8 mm Very low 1
13 Aug 19.1 °C 44 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm Very low 4
14 Aug 21.9 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
15 Aug 24.2 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
16 Aug 25.0 °C 33 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
17 Aug 23.9 °C 37 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
18 Aug 19.9 °C 50 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 14
19 Aug 17.3 °C 53 % 42 km/h 2.3 mm Very low 5
20 Aug 14.1 °C 46 % 36 km/h 1.3 mm Very low 4
21 Aug 12.4 °C 52 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
22 Aug after 13.3 °C 54 % 25 km/h 0.4 mm Low 7
23 Aug after 14.1 °C 56 % 39 km/h 0.4 mm Low 9
24 Aug after 12.6 °C 77 % 48 km/h 2.6 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Jul 2016
After · 28 Aug 2016

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 · 2,757Every 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 Katangsky Rayon fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 July 2016 and 21 August 2016: 38 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 16,133 hectares (161.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Katangsky Rayon (14,931 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.2 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, 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
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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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 2,757 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.