Burned area
satellite only776ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 31 Oct 2020 – 2 Nov 2020
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
AZ · Azerbaijan · –
Lachin District fire, October 2020 Lachin District
Out · last measured on 2 Nov 2020
The fire started on 31 October 2020 in Lachin District, Azerbaijan, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 776 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 147th largest in Contiguous Azerbaijan since 2016 (of 278 with a page). Number 12 in Azerbaijan in 2020, of 15.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only3days
31 Oct 2020 to 2 Nov 2020: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 31 Oct 2020 – 2 Nov 2020
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only31 Oct 2020
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 31 Oct 2020
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Danger at the start
model14.2FWI · moderate
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 24.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 31 Oct 2020, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model21.7°C · 21% RH
High of 21.7 °C and minimum humidity of 21% on 1 November 2020; gusts of 23 km/h on 2 November 2020.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 31 Oct 2020 – 2 Nov 2020
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
Living inside
model≈ 50people
Estimated residents inside the perimeter and 0.00 ha of built-up area (100 m grid, epoch 2020).
- Source
- GHSL R2023A · JRC
- Date
- calculated on 24 October 2026
+− cross-check
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.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
What was saved on 24 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 776 ha
- Dates
- 31 Oct 2020 – 2 Nov 2020
- Name
- Lachin District
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/lachin-district-2020-10?v=2026-10-24A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire lachin-district-2020-10.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-10-31 | 0 | 0 | 21.6 | 4.8 | 27 | 7.4 | 20.5 | 0 | 14.2 | moderado | 1 |
| 2020-11-01 | 0 | 0 | 21.7 | 5 | 21 | 9.1 | 20.9 | 0 | 17 | moderado | 1 |
| 2020-11-02 | 0 | 0 | 18.4 | 4.8 | 23 | 8.4 | 22.7 | 0 | 17 | moderado | 1 |
| 2020-11-03 | 0 | 0 | 14.9 | 6.5 | 49 | 7.7 | 21.6 | 0 | 12.3 | moderado | 0 |
| 2020-11-04 | 0 | 0 | 15 | 5.2 | 58 | 7.1 | 23 | 0 | 9.6 | bajo | 0 |
| 2020-11-05 | 0 | 0 | 12.5 | 7.3 | 66 | 6.4 | 22.3 | 0 | 7.5 | bajo | 0 |
| 2020-11-06 | 0 | 0 | 11.9 | 7.3 | 65 | 9.4 | 25.9 | 0 | 7.7 | bajo | 0 |
| 2020-11-07 | 0 | 0 | 9.6 | 3.8 | 91 | 10.7 | 33.1 | 5.9 | 0 | muy_bajo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
We have the GWIS perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.
- Burnt area
- 776ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 3days
- 31 Oct 2020 – 2 Nov 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 31 Oct
- 2020
- Danger at start
- 14
- Moderate · FWI index
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
22°high
23km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity
It had gone 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.9 mm on 7 Nov.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
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).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Lachin District where it started776 ha0.4 %
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 2020Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents≈ 50
Inside the perimeter there were about 0.00 hectares of built-up land and about 50 residents (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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31 Oct | 21.6 °C | 27 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 1 Nov | 21.7 °C | 21 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 2 Nov | 18.4 °C | 23 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 3 Nov after | 14.9 °C | 49 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 4 Nov after | 15.0 °C | 58 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 5 Nov after | 12.5 °C | 66 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 6 Nov after | 11.9 °C | 65 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 7 Nov after | 9.6 °C | 91 % | 33 km/h | 5.9 mm | Very low 0 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 14.2, a minimum humidity of 27% and 24 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 30.
FWI at the start
14.2
Minimum humidity
27 %
Days without rain
24
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Lachin District fire, October 2020
776 ha
3 days
FWI 14.2
Min. humidity 27 %
Kalbajar District fire, October 2022
763 ha
3 days
FWI 18.1
Min. humidity 27 %
94 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.3 mm on 9 Oct.
Agdam District fire, May 2018
1,052 ha
1 day
FWI 17.1
Min. humidity 28 %
77 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.3 mm on 26 May.
Sevan fire, September 2017
1,122 ha
4 days
FWI 13.6
Min. humidity 26 %
198 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 4.0 mm on 24 Sept.
Lachin District fire, August 2022
1,005 ha
7 days
FWI 21.9
Min. humidity 30 %
23 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.0 mm on 6 Sept.
Vardenis fire, September 2022
322 ha
2 days
FWI 19.3
Min. humidity 27 %
98 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.3 mm on 9 Oct.
What happened to them
- 2 days
- median duration
- 571 ha
- median area
- 17 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- 2.2 mm
- rain at the end (median; 28 of 30 had it)
It burned an area similar to its twins (776 ha against a median of 571 ha) and lasted 3 days, against 2 days.
In 2 of 30, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.2 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
5.9 mmfirst rain
7 Nov5 days after it ended
23km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 2 Nov, and on 7 Nov 5.9 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 28 of 30, with a median of 2.2 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.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 24 Oct 2020
After · 9 Nov 2020
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
Other fires nearby
- 4,856 haQubadli District16 June 2021 · 16 days · 13 km away
- 3,073 haJabrayil District24 June 2019 · 4 days · 21 km away
- 3,777 haQubadli DistrictAugust 2019 · 3 days · 23 km away
- 2,782 haJabrayil District23 June 2019 · 5 days · 26 km away
- 3,235 haJabrayil District22 June 2019 · 2 days · 31 km away
- 2,740 haLachin DistrictOctober 2022 · 4 days · 31 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Lachin District fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 31 October 2020 and 2 November 2020: 3 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 776 hectares (7.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Lachin District (776 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 21.7 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 23 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 17, class Moderate.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Azerbaijan (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: 30. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 571 ha; 17 % went past 1,000 ha. In 2 of 30, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.2 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
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. No 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.
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 (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported). 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.