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Momsky Ulus fire, July 2023 Momsky Ulus

Out · last detection 20 Jul 2023, 15:51 UTC

The fire started on 12 July 2023 in Momsky Ulus, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,257 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 496th largest in Sakha Republic since 2016 (of 1422 with a page). Number 104 in Russia in 2023, of 452.

Burnt area
10,257ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
12 Jul 2023 – 20 Jul 2023
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
12 Jul
2023
Heat detections
1,167
in a single hotspot: 317 MW
Danger at start
11
Low · FWI index
Energy released
19.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Jul 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Jul20 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

12131617181920

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

30°high
60km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.9 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. Momsky Ulus where it started
    10,242 ha reached on 12 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)
7 Jul 25.2 °C 29 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
8 Jul 26.3 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 14
9 Jul 13.4 °C 58 % 60 km/h 12.5 mm Very low 0
10 Jul 15.6 °C 35 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 1
11 Jul 18.7 °C 36 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
12 Jul 30.0 °C 32 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
13 Jul 30.3 °C 34 % 22 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 13
14 Jul 26.9 °C 48 % 31 km/h 4.6 mm Very low 2
15 Jul 27.8 °C 50 % 23 km/h 2.8 mm Very low 1
16 Jul 26.1 °C 38 % 36 km/h 0.7 mm Low 7
17 Jul 20.6 °C 34 % 31 km/h 2.2 mm Very low 3
18 Jul 24.7 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
19 Jul 23.0 °C 45 % 23 km/h 0.6 mm Low 8
20 Jul 28.4 °C 33 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
21 Jul after 21.4 °C 57 % 32 km/h 3.9 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Jul 2023
After · 27 Jul 2023

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 · Copernicus

On 21 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 285 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 150: 10.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak285 µg/m³
Days over the guideline13 days
PM10407 µg/m³
Optical depth5.22
1011121314151617181920212223
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 1,167Every 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 Momsky Ulus fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 July 2023 and 20 July 2023: 9 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 10,257 hectares (102.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Momsky Ulus (10,242 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.3 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 14, 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.