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Momsky Ulus fire, August 2023 Momsky Ulus

Out · last detection 18 Aug 2023, 03:02 UTC

The fire started on 9 August 2023 in Momsky Ulus, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,285 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 893th largest in Sakha Republic since 2016 (of 1422 with a page). Number 221 in Russia in 2023, of 452.

Burnt area
5,285ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
9 Aug 2023 – 18 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
9 Aug
2023
Heat detections
765
in a single hotspot: 33 MW
Danger at start
8
Low · FWI index
Energy released
2.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Aug 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Aug18 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

9101112131415161718

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
37km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.2 mm on 19 Aug.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 10 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Momsky Ulus where it started
    5,314 ha reached on 9 Aug
    0.0 %

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)
9 Aug 23.0 °C 41 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
10 Aug 24.5 °C 33 % 14 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
11 Aug 26.5 °C 29 % 14 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
12 Aug 27.4 °C 26 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
13 Aug 26.9 °C 28 % 12 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
14 Aug 26.3 °C 36 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
15 Aug 22.3 °C 46 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
16 Aug 16.0 °C 73 % 13 km/h 3.2 mm Very low 1
17 Aug 22.0 °C 46 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
18 Aug 17.4 °C 63 % 37 km/h 0.5 mm Low 5
19 Aug after 10.7 °C 74 % 28 km/h 6.2 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Aug 2023
After · 25 Aug 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 13 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 249 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 127: 8.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak249 µg/m³
Days over the guideline11 days
PM10355 µg/m³
Optical depth2.30
789101112131415161718192021
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 · 765Every 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 9 August 2023 and 18 August 2023: 10 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 5,285 hectares (52.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Momsky Ulus (5,314 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.4 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 16, 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.