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Katangsky Rayon fire, 13 July 2019 Katangsky Rayon

Out · last detection 11 Aug 2019, 05:06 UTC

The fire started on 13 July 2019 in Katangsky Rayon, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 30 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,453 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 107th largest in Irkutsk Oblast since 2016 (of 421 with a page). Number 161 in Russia in 2019, of 610.

The power measured by the satellite is low (21.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
10,453ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
30days
13 Jul 2019 – 11 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
13 Jul
2019
Heat detections
1,239
in a single hotspot: 21 MW
Danger at start
21
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
108MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Jul11 Aug
11 Aug 2019

How it evolved, day by day

13 Jul 2019 · 1 MW · 1 14 Jul 2019 · 4 MW · 6 15 Jul 2019 · 11 MW · 12 16 Jul 2019 · 25 MW · 9 17 Jul 2019 · 58 MW · 21 18 Jul 2019 · 162 MW · 50 19 Jul 2019 · 450 MW · 110 20 Jul 2019 · 107 MW · 73 21 Jul 2019 · 59 MW · 31 22 Jul 2019 · 53 MW · 39 23 Jul 2019 · 84 MW · 33 24 Jul 2019 · 32 MW · 17 25 Jul 2019 · 52 MW · 30 26 Jul 2019 · 27 MW · 18 27 Jul 2019 · 94 MW · 37 28 Jul 2019 · 117 MW · 41 29 Jul 2019 · 159 MW · 71 30 Jul 2019 · 222 MW · 84 31 Jul 2019 · 155 MW · 58 3 Aug 2019 · 13 MW · 12 4 Aug 2019 · 92 MW · 49 5 Aug 2019 · 452 MW · 153 6 Aug 2019 · 289 MW · 115 7 Aug 2019 · 82 MW · 44 8 Aug 2019 · 59 MW · 35 9 Aug 2019 · 94 MW · 45 10 Aug 2019 · 61 MW · 41 11 Aug 2019 · 18 MW · 4
13 Jul 19 Jul 25 Jul 5 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

32°high
57km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 12 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 6.6% of the area of London (105 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
    9,758 ha reached on 13 Jul
    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 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)
13 Jul 24.2 °C 37 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 21
14 Jul 27.4 °C 34 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
15 Jul 28.5 °C 35 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
16 Jul 30.8 °C 36 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
17 Jul 32.0 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
18 Jul 28.5 °C 34 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Jul 21.4 °C 32 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Jul 20.4 °C 35 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Jul 25.0 °C 30 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Jul 25.0 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Jul 27.0 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Jul 28.8 °C 31 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
25 Jul 29.6 °C 36 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
26 Jul 29.1 °C 38 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
27 Jul 28.7 °C 39 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
28 Jul 29.0 °C 38 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Jul 26.8 °C 37 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Jul 25.9 °C 34 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
31 Jul 25.7 °C 37 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
1 Aug 21.8 °C 59 % 27 km/h 4.8 mm Moderate 20
2 Aug 27.2 °C 44 % 23 km/h 0.2 mm Very low 3
3 Aug 26.5 °C 40 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
4 Aug 22.9 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
5 Aug 24.1 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
6 Aug 28.3 °C 26 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
7 Aug 27.5 °C 37 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
8 Aug 25.4 °C 36 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
9 Aug 28.4 °C 40 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
10 Aug 27.9 °C 41 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
11 Aug 24.5 °C 50 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
12 Aug after 17.7 °C 56 % 52 km/h 1.4 mm Moderate 16

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 21.1, a minimum humidity of 37% and 2 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 21.

FWI at the start 21.1
Minimum humidity 37 %
Days without rain 2
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Katangsky Rayon fire, September 2020
4,109 ha 7 days FWI 18.2 Min. humidity 36 % 88 km away, in 2020

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.7 mm on 20 Sept.

What happened to them

15 days
median duration
5,794 ha
median area
33 %
went past 10,000 ha
4.2 mm
rain at the end (median; 21 of 21 had it)

It was 1.8 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 30 days, against 15 days.

Only 6 of its 21 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 4.2 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

1.4 mmfirst rain
12 Augthe day after it ended
57km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 11 Aug, and on 12 Aug 1.4 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 21 of 21, with a median of 4.2 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 · 6 Jul 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 · 1,239Every 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 13 July 2019 and 11 August 2019: 30 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 10,453 hectares (104.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Katangsky Rayon (9,758 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.0 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.
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: 21. Their median duration was 15 days and their median area 5,794 ha; 33 % went past 10,000 ha. Only 6 of its 21 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 4.2 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

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. 1,239 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.