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Katangsky Rayon fire, 22 July 2017 Katangsky Rayon

Out · last detection 23 Aug 2017, 19:58 UTC

The fire started on 22 July 2017 in Katangsky Rayon, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 33 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 39,765 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 12th largest in Irkutsk Oblast since 2016 (of 428 with a page). Number 6 in Russia in 2017, of 367.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Katangsky Rayon · 2017Katangsky Rayon · 2019Katangsky Rayon · 2016Katangsky Rayon · 2017

Burnt area
39,765ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
33days
22 Jul 2017 – 23 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
22 Jul
2017
Heat detections
8,079
in a single hotspot: 267 MW
Danger at start
2
Very low · FWI index
Average daily power
1.7GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Jul23 Aug
23 Aug 2017

How it evolved, day by day

22 Jul 2017 · 198 MW · 26 23 Jul 2017 · 355 MW · 94 24 Jul 2017 · 1,467 MW · 89 25 Jul 2017 · 29 MW · 22 26 Jul 2017 · 90 MW · 29 27 Jul 2017 · 1,192 MW · 102 28 Jul 2017 · 388 MW · 74 29 Jul 2017 · 453 MW · 137 30 Jul 2017 · 2,120 MW · 109 31 Jul 2017 · 4 MW · 3 1 Aug 2017 · 1 MW · 1 2 Aug 2017 · 2 MW · 2 3 Aug 2017 · 41 MW · 23 4 Aug 2017 · 2,710 MW · 272 5 Aug 2017 · 5,446 MW · 510 6 Aug 2017 · 1,658 MW · 335 7 Aug 2017 · 990 MW · 190 8 Aug 2017 · 986 MW · 286 9 Aug 2017 · 572 MW · 269 10 Aug 2017 · 2,231 MW · 321 11 Aug 2017 · 1,426 MW · 322 12 Aug 2017 · 2,947 MW · 402 13 Aug 2017 · 8,288 MW · 584 14 Aug 2017 · 2,689 MW · 398 15 Aug 2017 · 880 MW · 318 16 Aug 2017 · 1,196 MW · 101 17 Aug 2017 · 1,124 MW · 363 18 Aug 2017 · 713 MW · 61 19 Aug 2017 · 1,350 MW · 428 20 Aug 2017 · 6,441 MW · 1007 21 Aug 2017 · 3,581 MW · 374 22 Aug 2017 · 3,484 MW · 759 23 Aug 2017 · 495 MW · 68
22 Jul 27 Jul 1 Aug 6 Aug 11 Aug 13 Aug 16 Aug 21 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

30°high
56km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 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 25% of the area of London (398 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
    37,183 ha reached on 22 Jul
    0.3 %

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 23.4 °C 46 % 26 km/h 5.3 mm Very low 2
16 Jul 16.8 °C 66 % 27 km/h 4.7 mm Very low 0
17 Jul 20.5 °C 54 % 36 km/h 2.3 mm Very low 1
18 Jul 20.3 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
19 Jul 21.2 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
20 Jul 24.1 °C 27 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
21 Jul 20.7 °C 50 % 48 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 15
22 Jul 18.8 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
23 Jul 23.7 °C 29 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
24 Jul 25.4 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 17
25 Jul 23.8 °C 45 % 22 km/h 3.1 mm Very low 3
26 Jul 23.9 °C 44 % 24 km/h 0.6 mm Low 6
27 Jul 26.8 °C 32 % 25 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 13
28 Jul 25.0 °C 50 % 26 km/h 2.4 mm Very low 4
29 Jul 25.7 °C 47 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
30 Jul 27.8 °C 39 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
31 Jul 23.5 °C 61 % 35 km/h 4.2 mm Very low 2
1 Aug 23.4 °C 46 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
2 Aug 23.7 °C 36 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
3 Aug 27.0 °C 30 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
4 Aug 27.7 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
5 Aug 28.1 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
6 Aug 28.5 °C 30 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
7 Aug 29.5 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
8 Aug 29.0 °C 37 % 16 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 21
9 Aug 28.7 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
10 Aug 26.8 °C 41 % 40 km/h 0.2 mm High 24
11 Aug 24.4 °C 32 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
12 Aug 26.9 °C 35 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
13 Aug 29.4 °C 39 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
14 Aug 27.3 °C 47 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
15 Aug 18.8 °C 39 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
16 Aug 19.9 °C 41 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
17 Aug 18.9 °C 45 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
18 Aug 18.7 °C 43 % 34 km/h 2.3 mm Low 6
19 Aug 20.9 °C 43 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm Low 10
20 Aug 21.2 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
21 Aug 19.0 °C 39 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
22 Aug 18.2 °C 33 % 54 km/h 0.2 mm High 24
23 Aug 15.9 °C 44 % 42 km/h 2.0 mm Low 7
24 Aug after 11.1 °C 51 % 44 km/h 2.5 mm Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Jul 2017
After · 30 Aug 2017

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 · 8,079Every 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 22 July 2017 and 23 August 2017: 33 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 39,765 hectares (397.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Katangsky Rayon (37,183 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.5 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, 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. 8,079 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.