Burned area
satellite only701ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 19 Aug 2023 – 19 Aug 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
AZ · Azerbaijan ·
Khojaly District fire, August 2023 Khojaly District, Agdam District
Out · last measured on 19 Aug 2023
The fire started on 19 August 2023 in Khojaly District, Azerbaijan, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 701 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 172th largest in Contiguous Azerbaijan since 2016 (of 278 with a page). Number 2 in Azerbaijan in 2023, of 4.
Use this data
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Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only1day
19 Aug 2023 to 19 Aug 2023: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 19 Aug 2023 – 19 Aug 2023
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only19 Aug 2023
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 19 Aug 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Danger at the start
model30.9FWI · high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 31.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 19 Aug 2023, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model30.7°C · 34% RH
High of 30.7 °C and minimum humidity of 34% on 19 August 2023; gusts of 34 km/h on 19 August 2023.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 19 Aug 2023 – 19 Aug 2023
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
Living inside
model≈ 40people
Estimated residents inside the perimeter and 0.17 ha of built-up area (100 m grid, epoch 2025).
- Source
- GHSL R2023A · JRC
- Date
- calculated on 24 October 2026
+− cross-check
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.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
What was saved on 24 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 701 ha
- Dates
- 19 Aug 2023 – 19 Aug 2023
- Name
- Khojaly District
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/khojaly-district-2023-08?v=2026-10-24A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire khojaly-district-2023-08.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-08-19 | 0 | 0 | 30.7 | 20.9 | 34 | 13 | 33.8 | 0 | 30.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-20 | 0 | 0 | 30.5 | 19 | 37 | 13.2 | 30.6 | 0.1 | 29.9 | alto | 0 |
| 2023-08-21 | 0 | 0 | 32 | 17.8 | 34 | 11.6 | 32.8 | 0 | 29.2 | alto | 0 |
| 2023-08-22 | 0 | 0 | 32.6 | 19.8 | 29 | 8.8 | 25.9 | 0 | 27.8 | alto | 0 |
| 2023-08-23 | 0 | 0 | 34.6 | 20.1 | 31 | 10.6 | 31.3 | 0.1 | 29.5 | alto | 0 |
| 2023-08-24 | 0 | 0 | 32.6 | 20.2 | 42 | 10.7 | 28.1 | 0.1 | 27.8 | alto | 0 |
| 2023-08-25 | 0 | 0 | 24.9 | 21.4 | 68 | 10.2 | 34.2 | 12.9 | 0.4 | muy_bajo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
We have the GWIS perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.
- Burnt area
- 701ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 1day
- 19 Aug 2023 – 19 Aug 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 19 Aug
- 2023
- Danger at start
- 31
- High · FWI index
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
31°high
34km/h · peak gust
34%lowest humidity
It had gone 31 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 12.9 mm on 25 Aug.
This area had burned before
4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 25 ha in 2019.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Khojaly District where it started606 ha0.6 %
-
97 ha0.1 %
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 2025Built-up area0.17 ha
Residents≈ 40
Inside the perimeter there were about 0.17 hectares of built-up land and about 40 residents (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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 Aug | 30.7 °C | 34 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 20 Aug after | 30.5 °C | 37 % | 31 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 30 |
| 21 Aug after | 32.0 °C | 34 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 22 Aug after | 32.6 °C | 29 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 23 Aug after | 34.6 °C | 31 % | 31 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 30 |
| 24 Aug after | 32.6 °C | 42 % | 28 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 28 |
| 25 Aug after | 24.9 °C | 68 % | 34 km/h | 12.9 mm | Very low 0 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 30.9, a minimum humidity of 34% and 31 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 38.
FWI at the start
30.9
Minimum humidity
34 %
Days without rain
31
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Khojaly District fire, August 2023
701 ha
1 day
FWI 30.9
Min. humidity 34 %
Jabrayil District fire, June 2019
3,073 ha
4 days
FWI 30.3
Min. humidity 36 %
60 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 4.2 mm on 1 Jul.
Tartar District fire, August 2025
1,302 ha
3 days
FWI 30.6
Min. humidity 37 %
40 km away, in 2025
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.2 mm on 10 Aug.
Fuzuli District fire, July 2019
629 ha
1 day
FWI 31.2
Min. humidity 33 %
52 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.7 mm on 3 Aug.
Fuzuli District fire, July 2019
1,715 ha
1 day
FWI 33.9
Min. humidity 32 %
50 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Tartar District fire, August 2025
538 ha
3 days
FWI 29.2
Min. humidity 37 %
41 km away, in 2025
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.2 mm on 10 Aug.
What happened to them
- 3 days
- median duration
- 866 ha
- median area
- 34 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- 3.1 mm
- rain at the end (median; 20 of 38 had it)
It burned an area similar to its twins (701 ha against a median of 866 ha) and lasted 1 day, against 3 days.
In 18 of 38, 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
12.9 mmfirst rain
25 Aug6 days after it ended
34km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 19 Aug, and on 25 Aug 12.9 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 20 of 38, 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.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 12 Aug 2023
After · 26 Aug 2023
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · CopernicusOn 20 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 14 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak14 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1032 µg/m³
Optical depth0.31
17 Aug19 Aug21 Aug
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)
Other fires nearby
- 2,496 haAgdam District17 July 2019 · 4 days · 12 km away
- 2,733 haTartar DistrictJuly 2026 · 5 days · 25 km away
- 3,195 haAgdam District24 July 2026 · 13 days · 26 km away
- 2,573 haLachin DistrictSeptember 2017 · 5 days · 32 km away
- 5,226 haKhojavend District17 July 2019 · 9 days · 36 km away
- 3,408 haKhojavend District18 July 2026 · 12 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Khojaly District fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 August 2023 and 19 August 2023: 1 day 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 701 hectares (7.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Khojaly District (606 ha, 0.6 %); Agdam District (97 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 30.7 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, class High.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Azerbaijan (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: 38. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 866 ha; 34 % went past 1,000 ha. In 18 of 38, 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.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
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. No 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.
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 (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported). 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.