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Katangsky Rayon fire, 2 July 2019 Katangsky Rayon

Out · last detection 11 Aug 2019, 06:47 UTC

The fire started on 2 July 2019 in Katangsky Rayon, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 41 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 28,604 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 26th largest in Irkutsk Oblast since 2016 (of 421 with a page). Number 37 in Russia in 2019, of 610.

Burnt area
28,604ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
41days
2 Jul 2019 – 11 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
2 Jul
2019
Heat detections
5,783
in a single hotspot: 168 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Average daily power
827MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Jul11 Aug
11 Aug 2019

How it evolved, day by day

2 Jul 2019 · 1 MW · 1 3 Jul 2019 · 3 MW · 2 4 Jul 2019 · 15 MW · 8 5 Jul 2019 · 678 MW · 48 7 Jul 2019 · 1 MW · 1 9 Jul 2019 · 1 MW · 2 10 Jul 2019 · 35 MW · 12 11 Jul 2019 · 147 MW · 13 13 Jul 2019 · 178 MW · 67 14 Jul 2019 · 166 MW · 72 15 Jul 2019 · 279 MW · 50 16 Jul 2019 · 115 MW · 54 17 Jul 2019 · 534 MW · 120 18 Jul 2019 · 600 MW · 181 19 Jul 2019 · 1,025 MW · 209 20 Jul 2019 · 743 MW · 91 21 Jul 2019 · 2,594 MW · 332 22 Jul 2019 · 3,882 MW · 530 23 Jul 2019 · 2,248 MW · 165 24 Jul 2019 · 487 MW · 160 25 Jul 2019 · 357 MW · 135 26 Jul 2019 · 462 MW · 169 27 Jul 2019 · 795 MW · 212 28 Jul 2019 · 1,292 MW · 289 29 Jul 2019 · 938 MW · 210 30 Jul 2019 · 941 MW · 208 31 Jul 2019 · 614 MW · 160 1 Aug 2019 · 19 MW · 15 2 Aug 2019 · 62 MW · 33 3 Aug 2019 · 604 MW · 180 4 Aug 2019 · 1,464 MW · 265 5 Aug 2019 · 4,208 MW · 481 6 Aug 2019 · 1,773 MW · 391 7 Aug 2019 · 2,710 MW · 420 8 Aug 2019 · 545 MW · 182 9 Aug 2019 · 453 MW · 154 10 Aug 2019 · 384 MW · 149 11 Aug 2019 · 78 MW · 12
2 Jul 13 Jul 21 Jul 29 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

34°high
56km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.0 mm on 12 Aug.

This area had burned before

11% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,133 ha in 2016, 1,276 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,165 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 18% of the area of London (286 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
    26,654 ha reached on 2 Jul
    0.2 %

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)
2 Jul 34.1 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Jul 24.6 °C 30 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
4 Jul 24.8 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
5 Jul 28.1 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
6 Jul 28.1 °C 30 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
7 Jul 23.5 °C 49 % 39 km/h 0.2 mm High 22
8 Jul 27.7 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
9 Jul 28.2 °C 36 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
10 Jul 27.9 °C 36 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
11 Jul 30.3 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Jul 22.3 °C 39 % 35 km/h 0.5 mm High 26
13 Jul 25.9 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
14 Jul 27.0 °C 35 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
15 Jul 27.2 °C 37 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
16 Jul 29.5 °C 39 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
17 Jul 31.2 °C 36 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
18 Jul 28.7 °C 32 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Jul 20.9 °C 31 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Jul 20.0 °C 36 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
21 Jul 23.8 °C 35 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Jul 25.4 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
23 Jul 25.5 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
24 Jul 27.5 °C 32 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
25 Jul 28.5 °C 37 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
26 Jul 27.9 °C 42 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
27 Jul 28.2 °C 40 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
28 Jul 27.3 °C 43 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
29 Jul 24.9 °C 44 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
30 Jul 25.6 °C 37 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
31 Jul 25.4 °C 38 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
1 Aug 22.1 °C 68 % 28 km/h 11.9 mm Very low 0
2 Aug 27.0 °C 45 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
3 Aug 25.8 °C 41 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
4 Aug 22.5 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
5 Aug 23.3 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
6 Aug 27.4 °C 29 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
7 Aug 26.8 °C 40 % 14 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
8 Aug 24.8 °C 38 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
9 Aug 27.1 °C 41 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
10 Aug 26.4 °C 45 % 21 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 21
11 Aug 21.0 °C 66 % 27 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 16
12 Aug after 16.9 °C 56 % 53 km/h 2.0 mm Low 9

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 29.6, a minimum humidity of 22% and 9 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 16.

FWI at the start 29.6
Minimum humidity 22 %
Days without rain 9
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Katangsky Rayon fire, June 2017
3,583 ha 10 days FWI 28.8 Min. humidity 19 % 31 km away, in 2017

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 11.4 mm on 3 Jul.

What happened to them

13 days
median duration
5,181 ha
median area
6 %
went past 10,000 ha
3.8 mm
rain at the end (median; 16 of 16 had it)

It was 5.5 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 41 days, against 13 days.

None of its 16 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 3.8 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

2.0 mmfirst rain
12 Augthe day after it ended
56km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 11 Aug, and on 12 Aug 2.0 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 16 of 16, with a median of 3.8 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 · 25 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 · 5,783Every 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 2 July 2019 to 11 August 2019 (41 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 July 2019 to 11 August 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 28,604 hectares (286.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Katangsky Rayon (26,654 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.1 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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.
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: 16. Their median duration was 13 days and their median area 5,181 ha; 6 % went past 10,000 ha. None of its 16 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 3.8 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: 3 July 2019 → 2 July 2019.

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 3 July 2019 to 11 August 2019. 5,783 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.