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Khiloksky District fire, 19 May 2025 Khiloksky District, Ulyotovsky District

Out · last detection 27 May 2025, 19:24 UTC

The fire started on 19 May 2025 in Khiloksky District, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,259 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 176th largest in Zabaykalsky Krai since 2016 (of 465 with a page). Number 94 in Russia in 2025, of 238.

Burnt area
7,259ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
19 May 2025 – 27 May 2025
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
19 May
2025
Heat detections
551
in a single hotspot: 160 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index
Average daily power
779MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 May27 May
27 May 2025

How it evolved, day by day

19 May 2025 · 67 MW · 18 20 May 2025 · 244 MW · 48 21 May 2025 · 1,408 MW · 81 22 May 2025 · 2,294 MW · 112 23 May 2025 · 66 MW · 41 24 May 2025 · 4 MW · 4 25 May 2025 · 47 MW · 19 26 May 2025 · 1,379 MW · 147 27 May 2025 · 1,501 MW · 81
19 May 22 May 25 May 27 May

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

29°high
65km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 28 May.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 94 ha in 2017.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 4.6% of the area of London (73 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. Khiloksky District where it started
    6,826 ha reached on 19 May
    0.5 %
  2. 469 ha reached on 22 May
    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 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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 May 10.6 °C 19 % 65 km/h 0.2 mm High 26
14 May 8.8 °C 40 % 48 km/h 3.6 mm Very low 3
15 May 9.2 °C 25 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
16 May 10.0 °C 24 % 46 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 12
17 May 9.4 °C 33 % 38 km/h 1.2 mm Low 6
18 May 10.1 °C 23 % 45 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 14
19 May 14.3 °C 13 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
20 May 14.8 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
21 May 17.9 °C 16 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 May 20.7 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
23 May 22.8 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
24 May 23.4 °C 20 % 36 km/h 2.1 mm Moderate 11
25 May 25.0 °C 22 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
26 May 27.7 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
27 May 29.3 °C 17 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 May after 25.3 °C 32 % 64 km/h 1.5 mm High 23

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 25.6, a minimum humidity of 13% and 12 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 15.

FWI at the start 25.6
Minimum humidity 13 %
Days without rain 12
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Chitinsky District fire, May 2024
3,226 ha 2 days FWI 26.5 Min. humidity 16 % 83 km away, in 2024

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 4.6 mm on 10 May.

What happened to them

9 days
median duration
5,221 ha
median area
13 %
went past 10,000 ha
3.1 mm
rain at the end (median; 14 of 15 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (7,259 ha against a median of 5,221 ha) and lasted 9 days, against 9 days.

In 1 of 15, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.1 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

1.5 mmfirst rain
28 Maythe day after it ended
65km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 27 May, and on 28 May 1.5 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 14 of 15, with a median of 3.1 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 · 12 May 2025
After · 3 Jun 2025

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 23 May 2025 the air beside the fire reached 661 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 316: 21 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak661 µg/m³
Days over the guideline11 days
PM10667 µg/m³
Optical depth3.35
17 May20 May23 May26 May29 May
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 551Every 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 Khiloksky District fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 May 2025 and 27 May 2025: 9 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 7,259 hectares (72.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Khiloksky District (6,826 ha, 0.5 %); Ulyotovsky District (469 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.3 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 65 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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: 15. Their median duration was 9 days and their median area 5,221 ha; 13 % went past 10,000 ha. In 1 of 15, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.1 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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 551 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 2025, 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.