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Olyokminsky Ulus fire, August 2017 Olyokminsky Ulus

Out · last detection 16 Aug 2017, 03:20 UTC

The fire started on 2 August 2017 in Olyokminsky Ulus, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,598 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 516th largest in Sakha Republic since 2016 (of 1422 with a page). Number 72 in Russia in 2017, of 369.

Burnt area
9,598ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
2 Aug 2017 – 16 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
2 Aug
2017
Heat detections
1,311
in a single hotspot: 462 MW
Danger at start
9
Low · FWI index
Energy released
12.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Aug 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Aug16 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

23456789111213141516

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
42km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.9 mm on 17 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Olyokminsky Ulus where it started
    10,181 ha reached on 2 Aug
    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)
26 Jul 23.6 °C 37 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
27 Jul 22.5 °C 59 % 42 km/h 4.4 mm Very low 2
28 Jul 12.4 °C 67 % 30 km/h 6.8 mm Very low 0
29 Jul 16.9 °C 40 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 1
30 Jul 21.3 °C 41 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
31 Jul 29.8 °C 43 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
1 Aug 24.4 °C 59 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
2 Aug 26.0 °C 34 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
3 Aug 28.9 °C 36 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
4 Aug 21.7 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
5 Aug 23.1 °C 33 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
6 Aug 25.5 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
7 Aug 27.9 °C 29 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
8 Aug 29.2 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
9 Aug 26.2 °C 44 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
10 Aug 20.5 °C 76 % 33 km/h 1.4 mm Very low 5
11 Aug 24.8 °C 55 % 30 km/h 2.5 mm Very low 3
12 Aug 26.8 °C 57 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
13 Aug 28.5 °C 45 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
14 Aug 31.6 °C 41 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
15 Aug 29.8 °C 47 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
16 Aug 18.1 °C 55 % 32 km/h 1.8 mm Very low 5
17 Aug after 13.0 °C 70 % 25 km/h 4.9 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Jul 2017
After · 23 Aug 2017

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 · 1,311Every 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 Olyokminsky Ulus fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 August 2017 and 16 August 2017: 15 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 9,598 hectares (96.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Olyokminsky Ulus (10,181 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.6 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, 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.

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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.