How long did the Olyokminsky Ulus fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 August 2024 and 20 August 2024: 17 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 6,037 hectares (60.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Olyokminsky Ulus (6,390 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 28.1 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 18, 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.

RU · Russia · 2024-08-04 → 2024-08-20

Olyokminsky Ulus fire, 4 August 2024 Olyokminsky Ulus

Out · last detection 20 Aug 2024, 04:42 UTC

The fire started on 4 August 2024 in Olyokminsky Ulus, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,037 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 798th largest in Sakha Republic since 2016 (of 1422 with a page). Number 283 in Russia in 2024, of 560.

Burnt area: 6,037ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 17days; 4 Aug 2024 – 20 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 4 Aug; 2024
Heat detections: 773; in a single hotspot: 160 MW
Danger at start: 18; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 5.4GW; sum of detected power

Play back 20 Aug 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Aug20 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

478910111214151617181920

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

The weather it burned in

28°high

45km/h · peak gust

31%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.4 mm on 21 Aug.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 17 ha in 2017.

17 ha Olyokminsky Ulus fire, August 2017 9,598 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Olyokminsky Ulus where it started

6,390 ha reached on 4 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)
4 Aug	24.3 °C	35 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
5 Aug	15.9 °C	67 %	31 km/h	6.3 mm	Very low 0
6 Aug	22.7 °C	43 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 4
7 Aug	22.4 °C	37 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 8
8 Aug	23.6 °C	31 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
9 Aug	27.3 °C	33 %	17 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
10 Aug	28.1 °C	31 %	13 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
11 Aug	26.3 °C	35 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
12 Aug	26.7 °C	44 %	17 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
13 Aug	22.5 °C	62 %	45 km/h	0.6 mm	Moderate 13
14 Aug	19.7 °C	50 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
15 Aug	17.1 °C	44 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
16 Aug	20.1 °C	34 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
17 Aug	22.1 °C	39 %	16 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
18 Aug	23.3 °C	31 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
19 Aug	23.2 °C	43 %	24 km/h	2.2 mm	Low 6
20 Aug	23.2 °C	55 %	23 km/h	1.8 mm	Very low 4
21 Aug after	16.9 °C	87 %	24 km/h	7.4 mm	Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 28 Jul 2024

After · 27 Aug 2024

Before After

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 18 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 235 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 130: 8.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak235 µg/m³

Days over the guideline16 days

PM10335 µg/m³

Optical depth2.83

WHO 15

234567891011121314151617181920212223

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 · 773Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Russia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Olyokminsky Ulus fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 August 2024 and 20 August 2024: 17 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 6,037 hectares (60.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Olyokminsky Ulus (6,390 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 28.1 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 18, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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.

Where it burned