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Katangsky Rayon fire, 7 September 2016 Katangsky Rayon

Out · last detection 19 Sept 2016, 20:34 UTC

The fire started on 7 September 2016 in Katangsky Rayon, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,206 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 162th largest in Irkutsk Oblast since 2016 (of 421 with a page). Number 290 in Russia in 2016, of 692.

Burnt area
7,206ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
7 Sept 2016 – 19 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
7 Sept
2016
Heat detections
1,038
in a single hotspot: 154 MW
Danger at start
7
Low · FWI index
Average daily power
719MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Sept19 Sept
19 Sept 2016

How it evolved, day by day

7 Sept 2016 · 11 MW · 5 8 Sept 2016 · 144 MW · 20 9 Sept 2016 · 57 MW · 6 10 Sept 2016 · 18 MW · 5 11 Sept 2016 · 48 MW · 13 12 Sept 2016 · 172 MW · 32 13 Sept 2016 · 212 MW · 35 14 Sept 2016 · 501 MW · 74 15 Sept 2016 · 819 MW · 100 16 Sept 2016 · 2,250 MW · 239 17 Sept 2016 · 4,458 MW · 393 18 Sept 2016 · 490 MW · 92 19 Sept 2016 · 161 MW · 24
7 Sept 10 Sept 13 Sept 17 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

22°high
32km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 21 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 4.6% of the area of London (72 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
    7,937 ha reached on 7 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)
7 Sept 16.7 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
8 Sept 17.7 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
9 Sept 17.4 °C 36 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
10 Sept 16.6 °C 36 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
11 Sept 14.7 °C 38 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
12 Sept 16.3 °C 34 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
13 Sept 17.8 °C 31 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
14 Sept 18.6 °C 25 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
15 Sept 20.9 °C 32 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
16 Sept 22.5 °C 20 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
17 Sept 21.0 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
18 Sept 17.2 °C 38 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
19 Sept 16.7 °C 40 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
20 Sept after 11.1 °C 56 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm Low 11
21 Sept after 3.9 °C 66 % 31 km/h 1.3 mm Very low 4

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 7.2, a minimum humidity of 32% and 7 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 22.

FWI at the start 7.2
Minimum humidity 32 %
Days without rain 7
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Mirninsky Ulus fire, July 2019
11,653 ha 15 days FWI 11.7 Min. humidity 32 % 19 km away, in 2019

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 17.2 mm on 31 Jul.

What happened to them

12 days
median duration
9,774 ha
median area
50 %
went past 10,000 ha
3.6 mm
rain at the end (median; 22 of 22 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (7,206 ha against a median of 9,774 ha) and lasted 13 days, against 12 days.

All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 3.6 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

1.3 mmfirst rain
21 Sept2 days after it ended
32km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 19 Sept, and on 21 Sept 1.3 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 22 of 22, with a median of 3.6 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 · 31 Aug 2016
After · 26 Sept 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 · 1,038Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 7 September 2016 to 19 September 2016 (13 days). The perimeter dates it from 8 September 2016 to 19 September 2016.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,206 hectares (72.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Katangsky Rayon (7,937 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 22.5 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 17, class Moderate.
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: 22. Their median duration was 12 days and their median area 9,774 ha; 50 % went past 10,000 ha. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 3.6 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Start date: 8 September 2016 → 7 September 2016.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 8 September 2016 to 19 September 2016. 1,038 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.