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Kobyaysky Ulus fire, 23 July 2020 Kobyaysky Ulus

Out · last detection 29 Aug 2020, 05:07 UTC

The fire started on 23 July 2020 in Kobyaysky Ulus, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 38 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 53,572 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 76th largest in Sakha Republic since 2016 (of 1422 with a page). Number 19 in Russia in 2020, of 592.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Kobyaysky Ulus · 2018Kobyaysky Ulus · 2020Kobyaysky Ulus · 2019

Burnt area
53,572ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
38days
23 Jul 2020 – 29 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
23 Jul
2020
Heat detections
8,570
in a single hotspot: 195 MW
Danger at start
7
Low · FWI index
Average daily power
2.3GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jul29 Aug
29 Aug 2020

How it evolved, day by day

23 Jul 2020 · 289 MW · 54 24 Jul 2020 · 1,733 MW · 124 25 Jul 2020 · 65 MW · 16 28 Jul 2020 · 43 MW · 9 29 Jul 2020 · 10 MW · 6 30 Jul 2020 · 545 MW · 133 31 Jul 2020 · 1,061 MW · 180 1 Aug 2020 · 2,366 MW · 279 2 Aug 2020 · 12,708 MW · 650 3 Aug 2020 · 5,030 MW · 556 4 Aug 2020 · 3,590 MW · 475 5 Aug 2020 · 3,798 MW · 474 6 Aug 2020 · 3,013 MW · 436 7 Aug 2020 · 2,126 MW · 325 8 Aug 2020 · 2,341 MW · 381 9 Aug 2020 · 4,295 MW · 239 10 Aug 2020 · 2,446 MW · 461 11 Aug 2020 · 488 MW · 95 12 Aug 2020 · 783 MW · 82 13 Aug 2020 · 5,330 MW · 495 14 Aug 2020 · 2,899 MW · 309 15 Aug 2020 · 1,393 MW · 243 16 Aug 2020 · 145 MW · 33 17 Aug 2020 · 1,967 MW · 355 18 Aug 2020 · 4,671 MW · 444 19 Aug 2020 · 1,098 MW · 125 20 Aug 2020 · 5,881 MW · 565 21 Aug 2020 · 2,328 MW · 357 22 Aug 2020 · 2,662 MW · 337 23 Aug 2020 · 710 MW · 122 26 Aug 2020 · 18 MW · 3 27 Aug 2020 · 122 MW · 29 28 Aug 2020 · 603 MW · 94 29 Aug 2020 · 439 MW · 84
23 Jul 30 Jul 2 Aug 4 Aug 9 Aug 14 Aug 19 Aug 26 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

27°high
67km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 30 Aug.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 196 ha in 2017, 12 ha in 2018, 9 ha in 2019.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 34% of the area of London (536 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. Kobyaysky Ulus where it started
    51,592 ha reached on 23 Jul
    0.5 %

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)
23 Jul 21.7 °C 50 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
24 Jul 26.7 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
25 Jul 27.0 °C 37 % 48 km/h 10.0 mm Very low 2
26 Jul 21.3 °C 46 % 38 km/h 1.1 mm Very low 4
27 Jul 22.3 °C 48 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
28 Jul 23.2 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
29 Jul 20.5 °C 42 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
30 Jul 22.8 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
31 Jul 23.3 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
1 Aug 24.8 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
2 Aug 25.0 °C 32 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
3 Aug 24.4 °C 36 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
4 Aug 23.8 °C 38 % 24 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 17
5 Aug 24.1 °C 37 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
6 Aug 23.3 °C 41 % 18 km/h 1.0 mm Low 9
7 Aug 22.8 °C 45 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
8 Aug 22.6 °C 43 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
9 Aug 22.8 °C 40 % 39 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 18
10 Aug 19.3 °C 50 % 33 km/h 1.5 mm Low 6
11 Aug 17.7 °C 47 % 23 km/h 0.2 mm Low 10
12 Aug 18.4 °C 47 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
13 Aug 9.9 °C 49 % 67 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 12
14 Aug 13.8 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
15 Aug 15.7 °C 40 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
16 Aug 13.7 °C 56 % 24 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 13
17 Aug 16.5 °C 34 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
18 Aug 18.5 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
19 Aug 16.2 °C 49 % 33 km/h 1.2 mm Low 8
20 Aug 14.1 °C 39 % 45 km/h 1.6 mm Low 7
21 Aug 16.3 °C 36 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
22 Aug 14.2 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
23 Aug 13.5 °C 43 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
24 Aug 10.3 °C 52 % 31 km/h 4.6 mm Very low 1
25 Aug 13.9 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Low 5
26 Aug 16.3 °C 31 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
27 Aug 17.4 °C 30 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
28 Aug 18.7 °C 26 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
29 Aug 18.3 °C 36 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
30 Aug after 11.9 °C 45 % 43 km/h 2.5 mm Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Jul 2020
After · 5 Sept 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 · 8,570Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 July 2020 to 29 August 2020 (38 days). The perimeter dates it from 28 July 2020 to 23 August 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 53,572 hectares (535.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kobyaysky Ulus (51,592 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.0 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 67 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 23 August 2020 → 29 August 2020.
  2. Start date: 28 July 2020 → 23 July 2020.

RSS Changes to this page

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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 28 July 2020 to 23 August 2020. 8,570 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.