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KZ · Kazakhstan · –

Kaztalovskiy fire, September 2017 Казталов ауданы · Kaztalovskiy, Taskalinskiy

Out · last detection 22 Sept 2017, 10:08 UTC

The fire started on 20 September 2017 in Kaztalovskiy, Kazakhstan, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,973 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 19th largest in West Kazakhstan Region since 2016 (of 53 with a page). Number 96 in Kazakhstan in 2017, of 239.

Burnt area
5,973ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
20 Sept 2017 – 22 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
20 Sept
2017
Heat detections
316
in a single hotspot: 36 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Average daily power
586MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Sept22 Sept
22 Sept 2017

How it evolved, day by day

20 Sept 2017 · 146 MW · 105 21 Sept 2017 · 1,604 MW · 209 22 Sept 2017 · 8 MW · 2
20 Sept 21 Sept 22 Sept

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
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

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 3.8% of the area of London (60 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. Kaztalovskiy Казталов ауданы where it started
    5,167 ha reached on 20 Sept
    0.3 %
  2. Taskalinskiy Тасқала ауданы
    838 ha reached on 20 Sept
    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 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)
20 Sept 33.6 °C 16 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
21 Sept 29.7 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Sept 19.1 °C 33 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Sept after 18.5 °C 26 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
24 Sept after 20.5 °C 21 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
25 Sept after 15.1 °C 35 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Sept after 13.5 °C 37 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Sept after 12.2 °C 40 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
28 Sept after 12.5 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
29 Sept after 10.7 °C 38 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
30 Sept after 10.5 °C 52 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
1 Oct after 10.6 °C 55 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 16
2 Oct after 9.2 °C 47 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 30

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 31.3, a minimum humidity of 16% and 5 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 9.

FWI at the start 31.3
Minimum humidity 16 %
Days without rain 5
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Dzhangalinskiy fire, July 2017
5,742 ha 2 days FWI 36.7 Min. humidity 20 % 184 km away, in 2017

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 9. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.

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

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
56km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 22 Sept, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain.

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 · 13 Sept 2017
After · 29 Sept 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 · 316Every 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 Kazakhstan

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kaztalovskiy fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 20 September 2017 to 22 September 2017 (3 days). The perimeter dates it from 20 September 2017 to 21 September 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,973 hectares (59.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kaztalovskiy (5,167 ha, 0.3 %); Taskalinskiy (838 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.6 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 56 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 Kazakhstan (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. Last day with fire: 21 September 2017 → 22 September 2017.

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 20 September 2017 to 21 September 2017. 316 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.