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Nyurbinsky Ulus fire, August 2021 Nyurbinsky Ulus, Verkhnevilyuysky Ulus, Olenyoksky Ulus

Out · last detection 14 Sept 2021, 06:05 UTC

The fire started on 27 August 2021 in Nyurbinsky Ulus, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 35,974 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 130th largest in Sakha Republic since 2016 (of 1422 with a page). Number 54 in Russia in 2021, of 581.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Verkhnevilyuysky Ulus · 2021Verkhnevilyuysky Ulus · 2021

Burnt area
35,974ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
22days
27 Aug 2021 – 17 Sept 2021
Municipalities hit
3
districts
Started on
27 Aug
2021
Heat detections
4,362
in a single hotspot: 624 MW
Danger at start
17
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
3.8GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Aug17 Sept
14 Sept 2021

How it evolved, day by day

27 Aug 2021 · 10 MW · 2 28 Aug 2021 · 4 MW · 2 31 Aug 2021 · 8 MW · 1 2 Sept 2021 · 4 MW · 3 3 Sept 2021 · 25 MW · 5 4 Sept 2021 · 3 MW · 1 5 Sept 2021 · 905 MW · 154 6 Sept 2021 · 2,143 MW · 297 7 Sept 2021 · 1,093 MW · 148 8 Sept 2021 · 2,681 MW · 376 9 Sept 2021 · 3,876 MW · 449 10 Sept 2021 · 13,245 MW · 970 11 Sept 2021 · 26,478 MW · 1104 12 Sept 2021 · 7,072 MW · 652 13 Sept 2021 · 928 MW · 86 14 Sept 2021 · 3,112 MW · 112
27 Aug 2 Sept 5 Sept 8 Sept 11 Sept 14 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

20°high
54km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.7 mm on 23 Sept.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 24 ha in 2020.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 23% of the area of London (360 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. Nyurbinsky Ulus where it started
    36,063 ha reached on 28 Aug
    0.7 %
  2. Verkhnevilyuysky Ulus
    1,722 ha reached on 27 Aug
    0.0 %
  3. Olenyoksky Ulus
    2 ha
    0.0 %

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.

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)
27 Aug 9.4 °C 47 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
28 Aug 16.6 °C 46 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
29 Aug 13.8 °C 57 % 37 km/h 1.6 mm Very low 4
30 Aug 10.1 °C 48 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
31 Aug 12.2 °C 44 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
1 Sept 14.0 °C 56 % 48 km/h 0.7 mm Low 10
2 Sept 15.7 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
3 Sept 9.2 °C 49 % 47 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 15
4 Sept 8.6 °C 41 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
5 Sept 14.5 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
6 Sept 17.9 °C 18 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
7 Sept 19.9 °C 13 % 11 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
8 Sept 18.8 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
9 Sept 17.5 °C 40 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
10 Sept 19.4 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
11 Sept 20.2 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
12 Sept 19.8 °C 33 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
13 Sept 17.4 °C 41 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
14 Sept 16.4 °C 42 % 26 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 17
15 Sept 7.4 °C 75 % 41 km/h 0.9 mm Low 8
16 Sept 11.0 °C 44 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
17 Sept 7.7 °C 48 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
18 Sept after 4.7 °C 64 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
19 Sept after 3.1 °C 55 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
20 Sept after 3.2 °C 55 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
21 Sept after 6.7 °C 50 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
22 Sept after 9.1 °C 52 % 24 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 12
23 Sept after 10.2 °C 40 % 30 km/h 4.7 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Aug 2021
After · 24 Sept 2021

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 · 4,362Every 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 Nyurbinsky Ulus fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 August 2021 to 17 September 2021 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 September 2021 to 14 September 2021.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 35,974 hectares (359.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Nyurbinsky Ulus (36,063 ha, 0.7 %); Verkhnevilyuysky Ulus (1,722 ha, 0.0 %); Olenyoksky Ulus (2 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 20.2 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 23, 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.
  1. Last day with fire: 14 September 2021 → 17 September 2021.
  2. Start date: 2 September 2021 → 27 August 2021.

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
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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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 2 September 2021 to 14 September 2021. 4,362 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.

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.