Skip to content
worldfires
en
RU · Russia · →

Katangsky Rayon fire, 4 September 2016 Katangsky Rayon, Усть-Кутский район, Ust-Ilimsky

Out · last detection 28 Sept 2016, 05:38 UTC

The fire started on 4 September 2016 in Katangsky Rayon, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 25,458 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 32th largest in Irkutsk Oblast since 2016 (of 428 with a page). Number 52 in Russia in 2016, of 692.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Katangsky Rayon · 2016Ust-Ilimsky · 2016Ust-Ilimsky · 2016Усть-Кутский район · 2016

Burnt area
25,458ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
25days
4 Sept 2016 – 28 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
3
districts
Started on
4 Sept
2016
Heat detections
5,143
in a single hotspot: 239 MW
Danger at start
14
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
1.3GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Sept28 Sept
28 Sept 2016

How it evolved, day by day

4 Sept 2016 · 4 MW · 1 5 Sept 2016 · 180 MW · 45 6 Sept 2016 · 180 MW · 58 7 Sept 2016 · 370 MW · 102 8 Sept 2016 · 1,053 MW · 98 9 Sept 2016 · 794 MW · 126 10 Sept 2016 · 1,101 MW · 110 11 Sept 2016 · 547 MW · 124 12 Sept 2016 · 928 MW · 174 13 Sept 2016 · 2,196 MW · 300 14 Sept 2016 · 2,234 MW · 360 15 Sept 2016 · 2,570 MW · 321 16 Sept 2016 · 1,763 MW · 379 17 Sept 2016 · 4,571 MW · 619 18 Sept 2016 · 7,639 MW · 733 19 Sept 2016 · 39 MW · 4 20 Sept 2016 · 147 MW · 68 21 Sept 2016 · 594 MW · 180 22 Sept 2016 · 835 MW · 180 23 Sept 2016 · 535 MW · 138 24 Sept 2016 · 1,873 MW · 382 25 Sept 2016 · 998 MW · 218 26 Sept 2016 · 109 MW · 39 27 Sept 2016 · 1,349 MW · 296 28 Sept 2016 · 742 MW · 88
4 Sept 8 Sept 12 Sept 16 Sept 18 Sept 20 Sept 24 Sept 28 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
46km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.4 mm on 29 Sept.

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 16% of the area of London (255 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
    15,802 ha reached on 4 Sept
    0.1 %
  2. Усть-Кутский район
    5,971 ha reached on 15 Sept
    0.2 %
  3. Ust-Ilimsky
    2,260 ha reached on 18 Sept
    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)
29 Aug 27.0 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
30 Aug 27.9 °C 26 % 25 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 18
31 Aug 23.0 °C 55 % 37 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 14
1 Sept 24.8 °C 36 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
2 Sept 15.4 °C 75 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
3 Sept 14.4 °C 63 % 31 km/h 0.4 mm Low 9
4 Sept 14.4 °C 58 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
5 Sept 16.1 °C 42 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
6 Sept 16.3 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
7 Sept 18.0 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
8 Sept 19.2 °C 34 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
9 Sept 19.7 °C 27 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
10 Sept 21.4 °C 37 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
11 Sept 19.8 °C 46 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
12 Sept 18.6 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
13 Sept 18.1 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
14 Sept 18.7 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
15 Sept 19.4 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
16 Sept 20.0 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
17 Sept 21.1 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
18 Sept 20.0 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
19 Sept 15.4 °C 64 % 32 km/h 3.2 mm Very low 2
20 Sept 13.3 °C 50 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
21 Sept 13.3 °C 45 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
22 Sept 10.8 °C 46 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
23 Sept 8.0 °C 52 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
24 Sept 9.3 °C 37 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
25 Sept 6.6 °C 38 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
26 Sept 8.7 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
27 Sept 11.4 °C 40 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
28 Sept 9.8 °C 41 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
29 Sept after 4.0 °C 76 % 27 km/h 8.4 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Aug 2016
After · 5 Oct 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 · 5,143Every 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 4 September 2016 and 28 September 2016: 25 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 25,458 hectares (254.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Katangsky Rayon (15,802 ha, 0.1 %); Усть-Кутский район (5,971 ha, 0.2 %); Ust-Ilimsky (2,260 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.9 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, 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.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 5,143 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.