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Kobyaysky Ulus fire, 4 July 2020 Kobyaysky Ulus

Out · last detection 17 Jul 2020, 18:59 UTC

The fire started on 4 July 2020 in Kobyaysky Ulus, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,349 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 456th largest in Sakha Republic since 2016 (of 1422 with a page). Number 138 in Russia in 2020, of 594.

Burnt area
11,349ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
17days
4 Jul 2020 – 20 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
4 Jul
2020
Heat detections
1,140
in a single hotspot: 208 MW
Danger at start
14
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
10.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Jul 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Jul20 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

467891011121314151617

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
50km/h · peak gust
32%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.3 mm on 21 Jul.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Kobyaysky Ulus where it started
    10,940 ha reached on 1 Jul
    0.1 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

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)
1 Jul 27.4 °C 40 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
2 Jul 21.5 °C 60 % 45 km/h 3.5 mm Very low 3
3 Jul 18.7 °C 43 % 37 km/h 0.8 mm Very low 4
4 Jul 16.4 °C 48 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
5 Jul 15.6 °C 44 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
6 Jul 16.9 °C 45 % 30 km/h 0.3 mm Low 10
7 Jul 19.0 °C 43 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
8 Jul 22.0 °C 39 % 19 km/h 0.6 mm Low 11
9 Jul 22.4 °C 42 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
10 Jul 25.6 °C 32 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
11 Jul 23.8 °C 46 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
12 Jul 27.3 °C 45 % 37 km/h 3.5 mm Very low 4
13 Jul 29.3 °C 44 % 35 km/h 1.1 mm Low 9
14 Jul 27.3 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
15 Jul 25.1 °C 38 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
16 Jul 25.4 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
17 Jul 24.3 °C 48 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
18 Jul 24.0 °C 51 % 44 km/h 9.1 mm Very low 2
19 Jul 23.1 °C 54 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
20 Jul 27.4 °C 54 % 36 km/h 0.7 mm Low 8
21 Jul after 24.2 °C 49 % 68 km/h 3.3 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 27 Jun 2020
After · 27 Jul 2020

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 · 1,140Every 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 Kobyaysky Ulus fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 July 2020 and 20 July 2020: 17 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 11,349 hectares (113.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kobyaysky Ulus (10,940 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.3 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 19, class Moderate.
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.

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

Satellite cross-check

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
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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.

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.