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Киренский район fire, May 2019 Киренский район, Katangsky Rayon

Out · last detection 16 Aug 2019, 19:02 UTC

The fire started on 18 May 2019 in Киренский район, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 91 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 97,597 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:

It is the largest fire in Irkutsk Oblast since 2016 (of 421 with a page). Number 7 in Russia in 2019, of 610.

Burnt area
97,597ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
91days
18 May 2019 – 16 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
18 May
2019
Heat detections
18,614
in a single hotspot: 1,016 MW
Danger at start
6
Low · FWI index
Average daily power
2.3GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 May16 Aug
16 Aug 2019

How it evolved, day by day

3 Jun 2019 · 2 MW · 1 6 Jun 2019 · 4 MW · 1 7 Jun 2019 · 4 MW · 1 8 Jun 2019 · 4 MW · 1 18 Jun 2019 · 8 MW · 6 19 Jun 2019 · 0 MW · 2 22 Jun 2019 · 4 MW · 1 23 Jun 2019 · 17 MW · 5 24 Jun 2019 · 2 MW · 2 25 Jun 2019 · 4 MW · 4 26 Jun 2019 · 1 MW · 1 27 Jun 2019 · 6 MW · 2 28 Jun 2019 · 7 MW · 4 29 Jun 2019 · 7 MW · 2 30 Jun 2019 · 30 MW · 4 1 Jul 2019 · 4 MW · 2 2 Jul 2019 · 16 MW · 6 3 Jul 2019 · 194 MW · 66 4 Jul 2019 · 794 MW · 153 5 Jul 2019 · 2,717 MW · 294 6 Jul 2019 · 1,080 MW · 62 7 Jul 2019 · 22 MW · 12 8 Jul 2019 · 31 MW · 5 9 Jul 2019 · 200 MW · 48 10 Jul 2019 · 71 MW · 46 11 Jul 2019 · 418 MW · 106 12 Jul 2019 · 93 MW · 74 13 Jul 2019 · 891 MW · 289 14 Jul 2019 · 1,453 MW · 343 15 Jul 2019 · 3,203 MW · 479 16 Jul 2019 · 2,688 MW · 375 17 Jul 2019 · 8,911 MW · 656 18 Jul 2019 · 3,159 MW · 545 19 Jul 2019 · 26,859 MW · 1601 20 Jul 2019 · 11,222 MW · 1266 21 Jul 2019 · 9,011 MW · 1087 22 Jul 2019 · 11,386 MW · 1426 23 Jul 2019 · 3,918 MW · 462 24 Jul 2019 · 1,638 MW · 487 25 Jul 2019 · 930 MW · 387 26 Jul 2019 · 782 MW · 325 27 Jul 2019 · 1,294 MW · 381 28 Jul 2019 · 2,895 MW · 580 29 Jul 2019 · 10,915 MW · 833 30 Jul 2019 · 3,746 MW · 671 31 Jul 2019 · 2,667 MW · 560 1 Aug 2019 · 42 MW · 38 2 Aug 2019 · 169 MW · 77 3 Aug 2019 · 500 MW · 211 4 Aug 2019 · 1,957 MW · 408 5 Aug 2019 · 10,658 MW · 1123 6 Aug 2019 · 6,313 MW · 900 7 Aug 2019 · 3,840 MW · 671 8 Aug 2019 · 3,741 MW · 691 9 Aug 2019 · 1,810 MW · 460 10 Aug 2019 · 778 MW · 286 11 Aug 2019 · 223 MW · 40 12 Aug 2019 · 33 MW · 13 13 Aug 2019 · 4 MW · 1 14 Aug 2019 · 10 MW · 4 15 Aug 2019 · 46 MW · 19 16 Aug 2019 · 55 MW · 8
3 Jun 29 Jun 19 Jul 7 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

32°high
65km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.0 mm on 19 Aug.

This area had burned before

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 728 ha in 2016, 1,806 ha in 2017, 1,306 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,887 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 62% of the area of London (976 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. 98,596 ha reached on 3 Jun
    2.2 %
  2. 79 ha reached on 30 Jul
    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 2020
Built-up area0.13 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.13 hectares of 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)

Started with Strong wind: 10.0 % of the area in Russia

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
18 May 9.3 °C 30 % 53 km/h 0.2 mm Low 6
19 May 11.2 °C 32 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
20 May 15.2 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
21 May 20.2 °C 38 % 38 km/h 1.3 mm Very low 4
22 May 14.1 °C 37 % 44 km/h 0.6 mm Low 6
23 May 12.1 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
24 May 9.0 °C 41 % 44 km/h 1.1 mm Very low 4
25 May 12.5 °C 36 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
26 May 14.8 °C 34 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
27 May 19.5 °C 30 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
28 May 10.4 °C 38 % 50 km/h 2.8 mm Very low 3
29 May 13.0 °C 54 % 41 km/h 4.2 mm Very low 0
30 May 13.3 °C 46 % 31 km/h 1.7 mm Very low 1
31 May 14.8 °C 40 % 39 km/h 1.4 mm Very low 2
1 Jun 18.7 °C 32 % 46 km/h 0.9 mm Low 6
2 Jun 13.2 °C 40 % 40 km/h 3.3 mm Very low 1
3 Jun 11.3 °C 56 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm Very low 2
4 Jun 13.1 °C 50 % 20 km/h 0.1 mm Very low 3
5 Jun 13.3 °C 57 % 20 km/h 3.4 mm Very low 0
6 Jun 15.5 °C 52 % 26 km/h 0.2 mm Very low 1
7 Jun 18.8 °C 43 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
8 Jun 21.2 °C 39 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm Low 7
9 Jun 22.6 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.5 mm Low 10
10 Jun 24.3 °C 48 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm Low 11
11 Jun 19.1 °C 71 % 50 km/h 25.5 mm Very low 0
12 Jun 14.5 °C 37 % 45 km/h 0.2 mm Very low 1
13 Jun 22.7 °C 46 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
14 Jun 25.9 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
15 Jun 18.1 °C 65 % 18 km/h 3.5 mm Very low 0
16 Jun 21.3 °C 72 % 23 km/h 3.2 mm Very low 0
17 Jun 27.9 °C 41 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
18 Jun 22.8 °C 51 % 46 km/h 1.5 mm Very low 4
19 Jun 18.9 °C 49 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
20 Jun 22.2 °C 44 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
21 Jun 16.8 °C 76 % 21 km/h 5.8 mm Very low 0
22 Jun 22.2 °C 40 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 1
23 Jun 23.3 °C 35 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
24 Jun 24.7 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
25 Jun 24.0 °C 36 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
26 Jun 26.2 °C 32 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
27 Jun 27.0 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
28 Jun 28.3 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
29 Jun 28.1 °C 32 % 43 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 21
30 Jun 29.1 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
1 Jul 31.3 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
2 Jul 31.6 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
3 Jul 23.7 °C 26 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
4 Jul 22.2 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
5 Jul 26.6 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
6 Jul 28.7 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
7 Jul 23.0 °C 45 % 37 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 12
8 Jul 24.7 °C 45 % 28 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 14
9 Jul 26.1 °C 46 % 33 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 17
10 Jul 25.1 °C 54 % 24 km/h 1.4 mm Low 7
11 Jul 28.6 °C 36 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
12 Jul 23.0 °C 44 % 37 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 12
13 Jul 23.4 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 20
14 Jul 25.0 °C 41 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 18
15 Jul 26.5 °C 34 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
16 Jul 28.9 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
17 Jul 31.7 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
18 Jul 30.0 °C 24 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
19 Jul 22.3 °C 30 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 Jul 19.9 °C 39 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
21 Jul 23.9 °C 36 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
22 Jul 24.9 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
23 Jul 26.9 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
24 Jul 28.8 °C 28 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
25 Jul 29.3 °C 33 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
26 Jul 30.3 °C 31 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
27 Jul 31.5 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Jul 30.7 °C 32 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
29 Jul 27.8 °C 32 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Jul 25.3 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
31 Jul 27.5 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
1 Aug 20.9 °C 53 % 31 km/h 12.1 mm Very low 1
2 Aug 23.7 °C 48 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
3 Aug 26.2 °C 37 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
4 Aug 21.3 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
5 Aug 22.9 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
6 Aug 27.3 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
7 Aug 29.1 °C 31 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
8 Aug 29.0 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
9 Aug 28.1 °C 38 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
10 Aug 27.3 °C 38 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
11 Aug 24.4 °C 55 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 21
12 Aug 19.9 °C 49 % 65 km/h 3.9 mm Low 9
13 Aug 17.8 °C 49 % 25 km/h 0.2 mm Low 8
14 Aug 16.4 °C 55 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
15 Aug 20.5 °C 60 % 33 km/h 5.4 mm Very low 2
16 Aug 17.6 °C 76 % 30 km/h 4.5 mm Very low 0
17 Aug after 16.1 °C 65 % 31 km/h 0.7 mm Very low 1
18 Aug after 15.0 °C 69 % 30 km/h 0.4 mm Very low 3
19 Aug after 14.8 °C 65 % 27 km/h 4.0 mm Very low 0

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 5.9, a minimum humidity of 30% and 2 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 17.

FWI at the start 5.9
Minimum humidity 30 %
Days without rain 2
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Усть-Кутский район fire, September 2016
3,790 ha 14 days FWI 6.5 Min. humidity 32 % 111 km away, in 2016

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 10.8 mm on 29 Sept.

What happened to them

16 days
median duration
9,964 ha
median area
47 %
went past 10,000 ha
3.0 mm
rain at the end (median; 17 of 17 had it)

It was 9.8 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 91 days, against 16 days.

None of its 17 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 3.0 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

4.0 mmfirst rain
19 Aug3 days after it ended
65km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 16 Aug, and on 19 Aug 4.0 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 17 of 17, with a median of 3.0 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 · 11 May 2019
After · 23 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 · 18,614Every 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 Киренский район fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 May 2019 and 16 August 2019: 91 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 97,597 hectares (976.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Киренский район (98,596 ha, 2.2 %); Katangsky Rayon (79 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.7 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 65 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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: 17. Their median duration was 16 days and their median area 9,964 ha; 47 % went past 10,000 ha. None of its 17 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 3.0 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. 18,614 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.