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Olyokminsky Ulus fire, June 2018 Olyokminsky Ulus

Out · last detection 26 Jun 2018, 05:12 UTC

The fire started on 7 June 2018 in Olyokminsky Ulus, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,942 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 400th largest in Sakha Republic since 2016 (of 1422 with a page). Number 100 in Russia in 2018, of 540.

Burnt area
12,942ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
7 Jun 2018 – 26 Jun 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
7 Jun
2018
Heat detections
1,219
in a single hotspot: 299 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index
Energy released
12.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Jun 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Jun26 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

7891011121314151619202223242526

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
42km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 15.6 mm on 27 Jun.

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
    13,257 ha reached on 7 Jun
    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 Jun 29.1 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.2 mm High 26
8 Jun 25.5 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
9 Jun 27.1 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
10 Jun 29.0 °C 20 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
11 Jun 24.0 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
12 Jun 23.1 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
13 Jun 20.9 °C 34 % 38 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 14
14 Jun 16.4 °C 46 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
15 Jun 21.7 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
16 Jun 24.0 °C 40 % 26 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 17
17 Jun 21.3 °C 49 % 40 km/h 3.4 mm Very low 4
18 Jun 22.8 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
19 Jun 25.7 °C 37 % 35 km/h 1.6 mm Low 11
20 Jun 25.5 °C 36 % 31 km/h 4.5 mm Very low 4
21 Jun 20.0 °C 43 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
22 Jun 23.1 °C 43 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
23 Jun 24.1 °C 43 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
24 Jun 24.3 °C 40 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
25 Jun 26.8 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
26 Jun 26.8 °C 43 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 21
27 Jun after 22.7 °C 70 % 39 km/h 15.6 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 May 2018
After · 3 Jul 2018

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 · 1,219Every 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 7 June 2018 and 26 June 2018: 20 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 12,942 hectares (129.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Olyokminsky Ulus (13,257 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.1 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 27, 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

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.