Kolosovsky District fire, April 2023 Tarsky District, Kolosovsky District, Znamensky District
The fire started on 26 April 2023 in Kolosovsky District, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 56,703 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 2th largest in Omsk Oblast since 2016 (of 153 with a page). Number 7 in Russia in 2023, of 450.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 56,703ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 19days
- 26 Apr 2023 – 14 May 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- districts
- Started on
- 26 Apr
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 3,706
- in a single hotspot: 257 MW
- Danger at start
- 12
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.7GW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
14% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,971 ha in 2020, 4,923 ha in 2021, 2,234 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,886 ha that had burned before.
- 2,801 ha Kolosovsky District fire, May 2021 6,601 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,530 ha Tarsky District fire, May 2020 4,443 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,288 ha Tarsky District fire, May 2022 3,460 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Moscow boundary: geoBoundaries · OpenStreetMap, Wambacher · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL 1.0).
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).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
41,381 ha reached on 26 Apr2.6 %
-
Kolosovsky District where it started13,759 ha reached on 26 Apr2.9 %
-
652 ha reached on 2 May0.2 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 1.7 hectares of built-up land and about 70 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 Apr | 23.3 °C | 24 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 27 Apr | 24.7 °C | 19 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 28 Apr | 22.3 °C | 28 % | 66 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 29 Apr | 9.8 °C | 24 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 30 Apr | 4.6 °C | 43 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 1 May | 7.6 °C | 30 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 2 May | 13.0 °C | 24 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 3 May | 17.1 °C | 16 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 4 May | 24.8 °C | 13 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 5 May | 25.7 °C | 7 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 6 May | 27.0 °C | 5 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 7 May | 28.4 °C | 6 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 8 May | 19.1 °C | 15 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 9 May | 10.2 °C | 26 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 10 May | 13.6 °C | 19 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 11 May | 16.9 °C | 19 % | 37 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 27 |
| 12 May | 10.6 °C | 23 % | 33 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 23 |
| 13 May | 13.0 °C | 23 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 14 May | 17.4 °C | 16 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 15 May after | 14.6 °C | 19 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 16 May after | 17.9 °C | 28 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 17 May after | 11.9 °C | 30 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 18 May after | 15.6 °C | 23 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 19 May after | 20.8 °C | 18 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 20 May after | 22.9 °C | 17 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 21 May after | 25.2 °C | 15 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 22 May after | 25.7 °C | 14 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 23 May after | 23.9 °C | 15 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 24 May after | 25.0 °C | 20 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 6 May 2023 the air beside the fire reached 172 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 88: 5.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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)
Detections table · 3,706Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 6,601 haKolosovsky District4 May 2021 · 11 days · 10 km away
- 3,946 haKolosovsky District28 April 2022 · 2 days · 15 km away
- 9,960 haTarsky DistrictApril 2021 · 9 days · 22 km away
- 10,598 haBolsherechensky District1 May 2023 · 5 days · 24 km away
- 4,443 haTarsky DistrictMay 2020 · 8 days · 30 km away
- 6,341 haZnamensky District28 April 2023 · 10 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kolosovsky District fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 April 2023 to 14 May 2023 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 29 April 2023 to 11 May 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 56,703 hectares (567.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Tarsky District (41,381 ha, 2.6 %); Kolosovsky District (13,759 ha, 2.9 %); Znamensky District (652 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 28.4 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 66 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, class 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.
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.
- Last day with fire: 11 May 2023 → 14 May 2023.
- Start date: 29 April 2023 → 26 April 2023.
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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 29 April 2023 to 11 May 2023. 3,706 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 (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.