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Khorolsky District fire, April 2017 Пограничный район, Oktyabrsky District, Khorolsky District

Out · last detection 16 Apr 2017, 16:58 UTC

The fire started on 7 April 2017 in Khorolsky District, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,009 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 44th largest in Primorsky Krai since 2016 (of 121 with a page). Number 140 in Russia in 2017, of 367.

Burnt area
6,009ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
7 Apr 2017 – 16 Apr 2017
Municipalities hit
3
districts
Started on
7 Apr
2017
Heat detections
274
in a single hotspot: 85 MW
Danger at start
1
Very low · FWI index
Average daily power
915MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Apr16 Apr
16 Apr 2017

How it evolved, day by day

7 Apr 2017 · 94 MW · 13 14 Apr 2017 · 9 MW · 4 15 Apr 2017 · 3,370 MW · 224 16 Apr 2017 · 187 MW · 33
7 Apr 14 Apr 15 Apr 16 Apr

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

The weather it burned in

24°high
64km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.4 mm on 18 Apr.

This area had burned before

4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 254 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.8% of the area of London (60 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. 3,024 ha reached on 7 Apr
    0.8 %
  2. 2,125 ha reached on 7 Apr
    1.3 %
  3. Khorolsky District where it started
    853 ha reached on 14 Apr
    0.4 %

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 2015
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, 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.

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)
7 Apr 10.2 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 1
8 Apr 12.3 °C 24 % 54 km/h 4.3 mm Very low 1
9 Apr 12.3 °C 12 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
10 Apr 15.5 °C 24 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
11 Apr 11.1 °C 32 % 49 km/h 3.1 mm Low 8
12 Apr 5.5 °C 25 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 1
13 Apr 11.9 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.3 mm Low 7
14 Apr 22.6 °C 17 % 42 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 17
15 Apr 24.5 °C 9 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
16 Apr 15.7 °C 13 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
17 Apr after 14.8 °C 15 % 73 km/h 0.6 mm High 26
18 Apr after 11.3 °C 41 % 34 km/h 4.4 mm Very low 1

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 0.9, a minimum humidity of 31% and rain the day before. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 35.

FWI at the start 0.9
Minimum humidity 31 %
Days without rain 0
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Boli County fire, October 2016
1,860 ha 8 days FWI 1.3 Min. humidity 33 % 197 km away, in 2016

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.3 mm on 5 Nov.

What happened to them

5 days
median duration
1,889 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
3.8 mm
rain at the end (median; 33 of 35 had it)

It was 3.2 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 10 days, against 5 days.

Only 3 of its 35 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. In 2 of 35, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.8 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

4.4 mmfirst rain
18 Apr2 days after it ended
64km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 16 Apr, and on 18 Apr 4.4 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 33 of 35, with a median of 3.8 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 2016.
  • 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 · 31 Mar 2017
After · 23 Apr 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 · 274Every 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 Khorolsky District fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 7 April 2017 to 16 April 2017 (10 days). The perimeter dates it from 14 April 2017 to 16 April 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,009 hectares (60.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Пограничный район (3,024 ha, 0.8 %); Oktyabrsky District (2,125 ha, 1.3 %); Khorolsky District (853 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 24.5 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 64 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 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 35. Their median duration was 5 days and their median area 1,889 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 3 of its 35 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. In 2 of 35, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.8 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. Start date: 14 April 2017 → 7 April 2017.

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.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 14 April 2017 to 16 April 2017. 274 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 2015, 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.