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Киренский район fire, 3 July 2019 Киренский район

Out · last detection 16 Aug 2019, 05:13 UTC

The fire started on 3 July 2019 in Киренский район, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 45 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 19,160 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

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 59th largest in Irkutsk Oblast since 2016 (of 421 with a page). Number 75 in Russia in 2019, of 610.

Burnt area
19,160ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
45days
3 Jul 2019 – 16 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
3 Jul
2019
Heat detections
3,348
in a single hotspot: 232 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Average daily power
577MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Jul16 Aug
16 Aug 2019

How it evolved, day by day

3 Jul 2019 · 106 MW · 28 4 Jul 2019 · 381 MW · 70 5 Jul 2019 · 1,469 MW · 149 6 Jul 2019 · 859 MW · 32 7 Jul 2019 · 2 MW · 3 8 Jul 2019 · 52 MW · 10 9 Jul 2019 · 331 MW · 35 10 Jul 2019 · 3 MW · 4 11 Jul 2019 · 85 MW · 33 12 Jul 2019 · 12 MW · 11 13 Jul 2019 · 274 MW · 91 14 Jul 2019 · 1,099 MW · 116 15 Jul 2019 · 574 MW · 96 16 Jul 2019 · 490 MW · 56 17 Jul 2019 · 732 MW · 100 18 Jul 2019 · 304 MW · 74 19 Jul 2019 · 1,135 MW · 135 20 Jul 2019 · 1,785 MW · 115 21 Jul 2019 · 2,303 MW · 175 22 Jul 2019 · 1,403 MW · 164 23 Jul 2019 · 461 MW · 49 24 Jul 2019 · 587 MW · 155 25 Jul 2019 · 379 MW · 87 26 Jul 2019 · 223 MW · 90 27 Jul 2019 · 1,020 MW · 155 28 Jul 2019 · 2,603 MW · 189 29 Jul 2019 · 434 MW · 97 30 Jul 2019 · 234 MW · 72 31 Jul 2019 · 277 MW · 69 1 Aug 2019 · 7 MW · 6 2 Aug 2019 · 105 MW · 30 3 Aug 2019 · 1,798 MW · 139 4 Aug 2019 · 459 MW · 81 5 Aug 2019 · 525 MW · 93 6 Aug 2019 · 996 MW · 113 7 Aug 2019 · 1,096 MW · 135 8 Aug 2019 · 801 MW · 149 9 Aug 2019 · 267 MW · 83 10 Aug 2019 · 95 MW · 29 11 Aug 2019 · 74 MW · 17 12 Aug 2019 · 19 MW · 6 13 Aug 2019 · 62 MW · 2 14 Aug 2019 · 6 MW · 2 15 Aug 2019 · 1 MW · 1 16 Aug 2019 · 29 MW · 2
3 Jul 12 Jul 21 Jul 28 Jul 8 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
57km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.2 mm on 18 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 12% of the area of London (192 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. 19,213 ha reached on 3 Jul
    0.4 %

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)
3 Jul 24.2 °C 34 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
4 Jul 24.3 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
5 Jul 28.4 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
6 Jul 29.4 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Jul 23.2 °C 51 % 36 km/h 2.7 mm Very low 5
8 Jul 27.6 °C 38 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm Low 10
9 Jul 29.4 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 19
10 Jul 26.7 °C 51 % 22 km/h 1.9 mm Very low 3
11 Jul 30.5 °C 33 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
12 Jul 22.1 °C 45 % 35 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 15
13 Jul 25.2 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
14 Jul 27.2 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
15 Jul 28.8 °C 32 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
16 Jul 30.9 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.3 mm High 27
17 Jul 32.3 °C 34 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
18 Jul 30.6 °C 24 % 46 km/h 0.2 mm High 25
19 Jul 22.0 °C 39 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Jul 20.6 °C 40 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
21 Jul 24.6 °C 37 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Jul 26.4 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
23 Jul 26.0 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
24 Jul 28.6 °C 32 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
25 Jul 28.9 °C 42 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
26 Jul 29.4 °C 39 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
27 Jul 29.1 °C 39 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
28 Jul 28.3 °C 40 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Jul 26.3 °C 42 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
30 Jul 25.2 °C 37 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
31 Jul 25.8 °C 38 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
1 Aug 22.9 °C 66 % 36 km/h 9.0 mm Moderate 18
2 Aug 26.4 °C 52 % 19 km/h 0.6 mm Very low 0
3 Aug 26.5 °C 42 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
4 Aug 23.3 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
5 Aug 24.1 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
6 Aug 28.5 °C 31 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
7 Aug 28.0 °C 36 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
8 Aug 25.6 °C 35 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
9 Aug 28.0 °C 44 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
10 Aug 27.2 °C 39 % 20 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 18
11 Aug 23.4 °C 61 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
12 Aug 19.7 °C 56 % 57 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 19
13 Aug 19.5 °C 47 % 22 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 13
14 Aug 17.4 °C 56 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 16
15 Aug 21.6 °C 52 % 31 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 15
16 Aug 20.5 °C 66 % 22 km/h 0.6 mm Low 7
17 Aug after 17.3 °C 66 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm Low 11
18 Aug after 17.3 °C 72 % 29 km/h 7.2 mm Low 5

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 28.7, a minimum humidity of 34% and 10 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 45.

FWI at the start 28.7
Minimum humidity 34 %
Days without rain 10
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Казачинско-Ленский район fire, July 2016
3,736 ha 9 days FWI 25.4 Min. humidity 35 % 116 km away, in 2016

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 7.6 mm on 11 Jul.

What happened to them

16 days
median duration
5,013 ha
median area
20 %
went past 10,000 ha
4.2 mm
rain at the end (median; 45 of 45 had it)

It was 3.8 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 45 days, against 16 days.

Only 3 of its 45 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 4.2 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

7.2 mmfirst rain
18 Aug2 days after it ended
57km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 16 Aug, and on 18 Aug 7.2 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 45 of 45, with a median of 4.2 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 · 26 Jun 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 · 3,348Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 3 July 2019 to 16 August 2019 (45 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 July 2019 to 13 August 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 19,160 hectares (191.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Киренский район (19,213 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.3 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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: 45. Their median duration was 16 days and their median area 5,013 ha; 20 % went past 10,000 ha. Only 3 of its 45 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 4.2 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 13 August 2019 → 16 August 2019.

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 3 July 2019 to 13 August 2019. 3,348 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.