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Katangsky Rayon fire, 4 July 2019 Katangsky Rayon

Out · last detection 31 Jul 2019, 19:01 UTC

The fire started on 4 July 2019 in Katangsky Rayon, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 28 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,760 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 131th largest in Irkutsk Oblast since 2016 (of 421 with a page). Number 192 in Russia in 2019, of 610.

Burnt area
8,760ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
28days
4 Jul 2019 – 31 Jul 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
4 Jul
2019
Heat detections
1,541
in a single hotspot: 111 MW
Danger at start
23
High · FWI index
Average daily power
427MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Jul31 Jul
31 Jul 2019

How it evolved, day by day

4 Jul 2019 · 14 MW · 7 5 Jul 2019 · 2 MW · 2 6 Jul 2019 · 13 MW · 4 9 Jul 2019 · 361 MW · 50 10 Jul 2019 · 102 MW · 26 13 Jul 2019 · 53 MW · 45 14 Jul 2019 · 256 MW · 56 15 Jul 2019 · 18 MW · 18 16 Jul 2019 · 263 MW · 40 17 Jul 2019 · 266 MW · 29 18 Jul 2019 · 355 MW · 90 19 Jul 2019 · 502 MW · 98 20 Jul 2019 · 1,323 MW · 123 21 Jul 2019 · 1,508 MW · 122 22 Jul 2019 · 1,341 MW · 138 23 Jul 2019 · 815 MW · 132 24 Jul 2019 · 245 MW · 49 25 Jul 2019 · 355 MW · 63 26 Jul 2019 · 372 MW · 67 27 Jul 2019 · 664 MW · 99 28 Jul 2019 · 778 MW · 66 29 Jul 2019 · 493 MW · 160 30 Jul 2019 · 146 MW · 51 31 Jul 2019 · 6 MW · 6
4 Jul 13 Jul 21 Jul 28 Jul

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
58km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 1 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 5.5% of the area of London (88 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
    8,890 ha reached on 4 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)
4 Jul 27.7 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
5 Jul 30.7 °C 26 % 52 km/h 4.4 mm Very high 38
6 Jul 28.9 °C 34 % 50 km/h 1.9 mm Very low 4
7 Jul 25.0 °C 49 % 44 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 12
8 Jul 27.5 °C 45 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
9 Jul 27.7 °C 36 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
10 Jul 28.6 °C 31 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
11 Jul 31.3 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
12 Jul 21.5 °C 50 % 41 km/h 1.4 mm Moderate 14
13 Jul 27.1 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
14 Jul 29.9 °C 36 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
15 Jul 27.2 °C 50 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
16 Jul 30.1 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
17 Jul 31.9 °C 24 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
18 Jul 23.0 °C 33 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Jul 20.8 °C 27 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
20 Jul 21.8 °C 24 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Jul 25.3 °C 21 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
22 Jul 28.1 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
23 Jul 29.7 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Jul 28.9 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
25 Jul 28.9 °C 28 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
26 Jul 28.4 °C 35 % 12 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
27 Jul 28.3 °C 39 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
28 Jul 27.0 °C 45 % 33 km/h 0.3 mm High 27
29 Jul 23.7 °C 48 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
30 Jul 26.9 °C 35 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
31 Jul 24.4 °C 51 % 32 km/h 1.4 mm High 22
1 Aug after 23.8 °C 59 % 23 km/h 1.3 mm Very low 5

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 22.6, a minimum humidity of 28% and 1 day without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 16.

FWI at the start 22.6
Minimum humidity 28 %
Days without rain 1
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Katangsky Rayon fire, July 2021
3,060 ha 10 days FWI 21.8 Min. humidity 29 % 110 km away, in 2021

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.0 mm on 4 Aug.

What happened to them

11 days
median duration
4,266 ha
median area
12 %
went past 10,000 ha
5.4 mm
rain at the end (median; 16 of 16 had it)

It was 2.1 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 28 days, against 11 days.

Only 2 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 5.4 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
1 Augthe day after it ended
58km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 31 Jul, and on 1 Aug 1.3 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 5.4 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 · 27 Jun 2019
After · 7 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 · 1,541Every 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 4 July 2019 and 31 July 2019: 28 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 8,760 hectares (87.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Katangsky Rayon (8,890 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.9 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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: 16. Their median duration was 11 days and their median area 4,266 ha; 12 % went past 10,000 ha. Only 2 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 5.4 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. 1,541 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.