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Okhotsky Rayon fire, 6 July 2023 Okhotsky Rayon

Out · last detection 31 Jul 2023, 15:47 UTC

The fire started on 6 July 2023 in Okhotsky Rayon, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 23,854 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 18th largest in Khabarovsk Krai since 2016 (of 299 with a page). Number 32 in Russia in 2023, of 450.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Okhotsky Rayon · 2022Ayano-Maysky Rayon · 2022Okhotsky Rayon · 2020Ayano-Maysky Rayon · 2022

Burnt area
23,854ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
26days
6 Jul 2023 – 31 Jul 2023
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
6 Jul
2023
Heat detections
3,732
in a single hotspot: 246 MW
Danger at start
6
Low · FWI index
Average daily power
1.2GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Jul31 Jul
31 Jul 2023

How it evolved, day by day

6 Jul 2023 · 7 MW · 4 7 Jul 2023 · 64 MW · 8 8 Jul 2023 · 3 MW · 1 10 Jul 2023 · 313 MW · 95 11 Jul 2023 · 679 MW · 102 12 Jul 2023 · 20 MW · 13 13 Jul 2023 · 486 MW · 111 14 Jul 2023 · 294 MW · 44 15 Jul 2023 · 440 MW · 57 16 Jul 2023 · 1,618 MW · 61 17 Jul 2023 · 58 MW · 24 18 Jul 2023 · 1,770 MW · 400 19 Jul 2023 · 2,441 MW · 420 20 Jul 2023 · 4,238 MW · 467 21 Jul 2023 · 88 MW · 13 23 Jul 2023 · 29 MW · 18 24 Jul 2023 · 486 MW · 92 25 Jul 2023 · 1,567 MW · 112 26 Jul 2023 · 6,241 MW · 667 27 Jul 2023 · 3,892 MW · 555 28 Jul 2023 · 2,543 MW · 466 31 Jul 2023 · 4 MW · 2
6 Jul 12 Jul 17 Jul 26 Jul

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
67km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 18.5 mm on 1 Aug.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 15% of the area of London (239 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. Okhotsky Rayon where it started
    23,202 ha reached on 6 Jul
    0.2 %

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 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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)
6 Jul 28.1 °C 42 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
7 Jul 27.8 °C 40 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
8 Jul 22.5 °C 53 % 43 km/h 1.7 mm Moderate 18
9 Jul 14.8 °C 48 % 67 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 13
10 Jul 21.4 °C 27 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
11 Jul 25.3 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
12 Jul 28.4 °C 32 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
13 Jul 28.9 °C 30 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
14 Jul 26.8 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
15 Jul 24.8 °C 46 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
16 Jul 26.1 °C 35 % 44 km/h 0.5 mm High 29
17 Jul 20.9 °C 34 % 39 km/h 2.7 mm Low 9
18 Jul 26.7 °C 25 % 13 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
19 Jul 31.2 °C 38 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
20 Jul 28.4 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
21 Jul 24.9 °C 56 % 29 km/h 9.6 mm High 22
22 Jul 19.7 °C 61 % 48 km/h 3.7 mm Very low 1
23 Jul 24.5 °C 30 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
24 Jul 28.0 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
25 Jul 29.1 °C 29 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
26 Jul 27.6 °C 37 % 25 km/h 0.1 mm High 23
27 Jul 26.9 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
28 Jul 27.4 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
29 Jul 21.3 °C 59 % 28 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 19
30 Jul 22.6 °C 47 % 26 km/h 1.4 mm Low 6
31 Jul 24.3 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
1 Aug after 15.6 °C 82 % 40 km/h 18.5 mm Very low 0

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 6.4, a minimum humidity of 42% and rain the day before. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2018: 25.

FWI at the start 6.4
Minimum humidity 42 %
Days without rain 0
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Okhotsky Rayon fire, June 2022
6,173 ha 11 days FWI 5.9 Min. humidity 42 % 91 km away, in 2022

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.4 mm on 11 Jul.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

15 days
median duration
5,793 ha
median area
24 %
went past 10,000 ha
9.6 mm
rain at the end (median; 25 of 25 had it)

It was 4.1 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 26 days, against 15 days.

Only 2 of its 25 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 9.6 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

18.5 mmfirst rain
1 Augthe day after it ended
67km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 31 Jul, and on 1 Aug 18.5 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 25 of 25, with a median of 9.6 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 2018.
  • 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.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Jun 2023
After · 7 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 28 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 322 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 205: 14 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak322 µg/m³
Days over the guideline25 days
PM10461 µg/m³
Optical depth4.55
4 Jul11 Jul18 Jul25 Jul1 Aug
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 · 3,732Every 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 Okhotsky Rayon fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 July 2023 and 31 July 2023: 26 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 23,854 hectares (238.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Okhotsky Rayon (23,202 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.2 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 67 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2018 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 25. Their median duration was 15 days and their median area 5,793 ha; 24 % went past 10,000 ha. Only 2 of its 25 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 9.6 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Area: 24,391 → 23,854 ha.

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
What do you think is wrong?

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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 3,732 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.

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.