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Katangsky Rayon fire, June 2019 Katangsky Rayon, Evenkiysky Rayon

Out · last detection 11 Aug 2019, 05:07 UTC

The fire started on 28 June 2019 in Katangsky Rayon, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 45 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 59,845 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

It is the 4th largest in Irkutsk Oblast since 2016 (of 428 with a page). Number 12 in Russia in 2019, of 610.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Evenkiysky Rayon · 2017Evenkiysky Rayon · 2017Evenkiysky Rayon · 2017

Burnt area
59,845ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
45days
28 Jun 2019 – 11 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
28 Jun
2019
Heat detections
10,165
in a single hotspot: 618 MW
Danger at start
23
High · FWI index
Average daily power
2.1GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Jun11 Aug
11 Aug 2019

How it evolved, day by day

28 Jun 2019 · 19 MW · 3 29 Jun 2019 · 8 MW · 1 30 Jun 2019 · 1 MW · 1 2 Jul 2019 · 109 MW · 23 3 Jul 2019 · 266 MW · 59 4 Jul 2019 · 170 MW · 62 5 Jul 2019 · 376 MW · 77 8 Jul 2019 · 21 MW · 14 9 Jul 2019 · 4 MW · 3 10 Jul 2019 · 24 MW · 5 11 Jul 2019 · 9 MW · 1 12 Jul 2019 · 11 MW · 7 13 Jul 2019 · 471 MW · 65 15 Jul 2019 · 488 MW · 48 16 Jul 2019 · 133 MW · 49 17 Jul 2019 · 805 MW · 118 18 Jul 2019 · 447 MW · 97 19 Jul 2019 · 1,149 MW · 86 20 Jul 2019 · 12,226 MW · 962 21 Jul 2019 · 8,673 MW · 740 22 Jul 2019 · 2,661 MW · 432 23 Jul 2019 · 6,005 MW · 997 24 Jul 2019 · 494 MW · 188 25 Jul 2019 · 1,100 MW · 345 26 Jul 2019 · 175 MW · 29 29 Jul 2019 · 12 MW · 5 30 Jul 2019 · 53 MW · 24 31 Jul 2019 · 25 MW · 10 1 Aug 2019 · 65 MW · 37 2 Aug 2019 · 946 MW · 250 3 Aug 2019 · 195 MW · 111 4 Aug 2019 · 2,235 MW · 435 5 Aug 2019 · 13,085 MW · 1600 6 Aug 2019 · 20,138 MW · 1311 7 Aug 2019 · 1,607 MW · 440 8 Aug 2019 · 2,734 MW · 583 9 Aug 2019 · 4,701 MW · 716 10 Aug 2019 · 533 MW · 227 11 Aug 2019 · 26 MW · 4
28 Jun 5 Jul 13 Jul 20 Jul 26 Jul 3 Aug 6 Aug 9 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

34°high
64km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.2 mm on 12 Aug.

This area had burned before

3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 568 ha in 2016, 274 ha in 2017, 844 ha in 2018.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 38% of the area of London (598 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
    28,376 ha reached on 28 Jun
    0.2 %
  2. Evenkiysky Rayon
    27,001 ha reached on 20 Jul
    0.0 %

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 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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)
28 Jun 31.3 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
29 Jun 32.5 °C 24 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
30 Jun 32.7 °C 27 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
1 Jul 34.4 °C 24 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
2 Jul 33.2 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
3 Jul 24.4 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Jul 26.7 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
5 Jul 29.1 °C 25 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Jul 24.8 °C 46 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
7 Jul 22.2 °C 53 % 46 km/h 1.8 mm Low 8
8 Jul 26.6 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
9 Jul 26.0 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
10 Jul 28.6 °C 28 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
11 Jul 28.9 °C 32 % 46 km/h 0.6 mm High 28
12 Jul 20.3 °C 50 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
13 Jul 26.5 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
14 Jul 27.7 °C 35 % 21 km/h 0.3 mm High 24
15 Jul 26.4 °C 39 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
16 Jul 28.7 °C 38 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
17 Jul 30.6 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
18 Jul 24.9 °C 33 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
19 Jul 20.3 °C 28 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
20 Jul 20.3 °C 26 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Jul 23.3 °C 26 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
22 Jul 25.4 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
23 Jul 26.4 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
24 Jul 26.5 °C 31 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
25 Jul 28.1 °C 34 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
26 Jul 26.4 °C 44 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
27 Jul 26.7 °C 49 % 23 km/h 0.3 mm High 23
28 Jul 25.6 °C 41 % 35 km/h 0.3 mm High 27
29 Jul 25.4 °C 36 % 26 km/h 0.3 mm High 25
30 Jul 26.2 °C 37 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
31 Jul 24.9 °C 45 % 27 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 18
1 Aug 22.4 °C 62 % 24 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 17
2 Aug 27.3 °C 41 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
3 Aug 19.9 °C 43 % 39 km/h 4.2 mm Low 6
4 Aug 23.1 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
5 Aug 24.5 °C 28 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
6 Aug 26.3 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
7 Aug 25.1 °C 36 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
8 Aug 26.0 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
9 Aug 25.6 °C 42 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
10 Aug 26.6 °C 42 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm High 25
11 Aug 19.3 °C 56 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
12 Aug after 15.6 °C 71 % 46 km/h 11.2 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Jun 2019
After · 18 Aug 2019

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 · 10,165Every 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 28 June 2019 to 11 August 2019 (45 days). The perimeter dates it from 30 June 2019 to 11 August 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 59,845 hectares (598.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Katangsky Rayon (28,376 ha, 0.2 %); Evenkiysky Rayon (27,001 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.4 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 64 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, class Very 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Start date: 30 June 2019 → 28 June 2019.

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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 30 June 2019 to 11 August 2019. 10,165 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 2020, 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.