Burned area
satellite only44,677ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 5 Jul 2023 – 23 Jul 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
RU · Russia · –
Selemdzhinsky District fire, 5 July 2023 Selemdzhinsky District
Out · last detection 23 Jul 2023, 16:39 UTC
The fire started on 5 July 2023 in Selemdzhinsky District, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 44,677 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 18th largest in Amur Oblast since 2016 (of 491 with a page). Number 10 in Russia in 2023, of 450.
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only19days
5 Jul 2023 to 23 Jul 2023: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 23 Jul 2023, 16:39 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only5 Jul 2023
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 5 Jul 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only3,728
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 160 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 5 Jul 2023 – 23 Jul 2023
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only8,058MW
Total radiative power on 11 July 2023; hotspots that day: 659.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 11 Jul 2023
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model24.7FWI · high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 6.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 5 Jul 2023, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model31.5°C · 30% RH
High of 31.5 °C and minimum humidity of 30% on 5 July 2023; gusts of 37 km/h on 9 July 2023.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 5 Jul 2023 – 23 Jul 2023
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
What was saved on 24 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 44,677 ha
- Dates
- 5 Jul 2023 – 23 Jul 2023
- Name
- Selemdzhinsky District
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/selemdzhinsky-district-2023-07-2?v=2026-10-24A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire selemdzhinsky-district-2023-07-2.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-07-05 | 24 | 99 | 31.5 | 16.9 | 30 | 12.3 | 33.8 | 0 | 24.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-07-06 | 15 | 98 | 28.5 | 18 | 34 | 12.1 | 29.9 | 0 | 23.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-07-07 | 7 | 45 | 31.2 | 15.4 | 30 | 9.1 | 20.2 | 0 | 22.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-07-08 | 3 | 17 | 31.4 | 17.5 | 33 | 15.2 | 36 | 0 | 26.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-07-09 | 401 | 2,884 | 30.9 | 17.7 | 26 | 15.1 | 36.7 | 0 | 27.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-07-10 | 563 | 5,499 | 28.1 | 16.5 | 18 | 15.5 | 35.6 | 0 | 31.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-07-11 | 659 | 8,058 | 30.1 | 15.1 | 24 | 10.7 | 20.9 | 0 | 28.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-07-12 | 363 | 3,832 | 31.2 | 14.7 | 24 | 9.1 | 15.8 | 0 | 28.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-07-13 | 418 | 3,011 | 29.5 | 14.9 | 33 | 9.6 | 25.9 | 0 | 26.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-07-14 | 396 | 3,043 | 30.5 | 15.7 | 32 | 9.5 | 16.6 | 0 | 27.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-07-15 | 44 | 137 | 28.8 | 19.1 | 39 | 11.8 | 28.4 | 0 | 25.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-07-16 | 244 | 995 | 28.2 | 18.9 | 40 | 10.9 | 23.4 | 0 | 24.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-07-17 | 193 | 843 | 30.5 | 14.9 | 33 | 8.4 | 18.7 | 0 | 23.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-07-18 | 168 | 823 | 31 | 15.5 | 34 | 8 | 23 | 0 | 23.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-07-19 | 207 | 971 | 31.1 | 16.6 | 34 | 7.8 | 15.1 | 0 | 23.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-07-20 | 0 | 0 | 24.9 | 17.3 | 66 | 8.9 | 26.3 | 11 | 0.5 | muy_bajo | 1 |
| 2023-07-21 | 0 | 0 | 24.8 | 16.2 | 37 | 12.8 | 33.1 | 4.3 | 3 | muy_bajo | 1 |
| 2023-07-22 | 1 | 8 | 25.9 | 13 | 34 | 10.4 | 27.4 | 0 | 9.1 | bajo | 1 |
| 2023-07-23 | 22 | 179 | 29.5 | 13.7 | 33 | 8.5 | 13.7 | 0 | 15.9 | moderado | 1 |
| 2023-07-24 | 0 | 0 | 23.6 | 16.4 | 61 | 10.2 | 19.8 | 0 | 12.7 | moderado | 0 |
| 2023-07-25 | 0 | 0 | 22.8 | 17.4 | 79 | 8.5 | 17.3 | 9.6 | 0 | muy_bajo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 44,677ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 19days
- 5 Jul 2023 – 23 Jul 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 5 Jul
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 3,728
- in a single hotspot: 160 MW
- Danger at start
- 25
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.8GW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
5 Jul23 Jul
23 Jul 2023
How it evolved, day by day
5 Jul
11 Jul
17 Jul
23 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
32°high
37km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity
It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 9.6 mm on 25 Jul.
This area had burned before
31% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 8,758 ha in 2016, 4,596 ha in 2018, 498 ha in 2022.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Moscow boundary: geoBoundaries · OpenStreetMap, Wambacher · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL 1.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Selemdzhinsky District where it started44,933 ha reached on 5 Jul1.0 %
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 2025Built-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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 Jul | 31.5 °C | 30 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 6 Jul | 28.5 °C | 34 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 7 Jul | 31.2 °C | 30 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 8 Jul | 31.4 °C | 33 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 9 Jul | 30.9 °C | 26 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 10 Jul | 28.1 °C | 18 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 11 Jul | 30.1 °C | 24 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 12 Jul | 31.2 °C | 24 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 13 Jul | 29.5 °C | 33 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 14 Jul | 30.5 °C | 32 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 15 Jul | 28.8 °C | 39 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 16 Jul | 28.2 °C | 40 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 17 Jul | 30.5 °C | 33 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 18 Jul | 31.0 °C | 34 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 19 Jul | 31.1 °C | 34 % | 15 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 20 Jul | 24.9 °C | 66 % | 26 km/h | 11.0 mm | Very low 0 |
| 21 Jul | 24.8 °C | 37 % | 33 km/h | 4.3 mm | Very low 3 |
| 22 Jul | 25.9 °C | 34 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 23 Jul | 29.5 °C | 33 % | 14 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 24 Jul after | 23.6 °C | 61 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 25 Jul after | 22.8 °C | 79 % | 17 km/h | 9.6 mm | Very low 0 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 24.7, a minimum humidity of 30% and 6 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 19.
FWI at the start
24.7
Minimum humidity
30 %
Days without rain
6
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Selemdzhinsky District fire, 5 July 2023
44,677 ha
19 days
FWI 24.7
Min. humidity 30 %
Mazanovsky District fire, May 2018
5,755 ha
2 days
FWI 25.7
Min. humidity 28 %
120 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 8.1 mm on 23 May.
Mazanovsky District fire, June 2024
21,208 ha
16 days
FWI 24.4
Min. humidity 27 %
113 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.0 mm on 14 Jul.
Mazanovsky District fire, June 2024
43,365 ha
18 days
FWI 21.0
Min. humidity 29 %
107 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 17.4 mm on 15 Jul.
Selemdzhinsky District fire, May 2018
10,385 ha
2 days
FWI 21.9
Min. humidity 28 %
99 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 12.3 mm on 23 May.
Mazanovsky District fire, May 2018
35,413 ha
11 days
FWI 18.8
Min. humidity 30 %
118 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 5.5 mm on 23 May.
What happened to them
- 9 days
- median duration
- 18,029 ha
- median area
- 63 %
- went past 10,000 ha
- 8.6 mm
- rain at the end (median; 19 of 19 had it)
It was 2.5 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 19 days, against 9 days.
Only 2 of its 19 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 8.6 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
9.6 mmfirst rain
25 Jul2 days after it ended
37km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 23 Jul, and on 25 Jul 9.6 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 19 of 19, with a median of 8.6 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 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.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 28 Jun 2023
After · 30 Jul 2023
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · CopernicusOn 17 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 585 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 317: 21 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak585 µg/m³
Days over the guideline18 days
PM10836 µg/m³
Optical depth6.09
WHO 15
3 Jul8 Jul13 Jul18 Jul23 Jul
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 · 3,728Every 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
- 10,775 haSelemdzhinsky District19 May 2016 · 6 days · 9 km away
- 10,285 haSelemdzhinsky District30 June 2024 · 14 days · 16 km away
- 23,555 haSelemdzhinsky District28 May 2018 · 13 days · 23 km away
- 18,895 haSelemdzhinsky District2 July 2017 · 8 days · 27 km away
- 22,198 haSelemdzhinsky District23 June 2024 · 13 days · 29 km away
- 6,064 haSelemdzhinsky District28 May 2018 · 14 days · 33 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Selemdzhinsky District fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 July 2023 and 23 July 2023: 19 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 44,677 hectares (446.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Selemdzhinsky District (44,933 ha, 1.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, 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: 19. Their median duration was 9 days and their median area 18,029 ha; 63 % went past 10,000 ha. Only 2 of its 19 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 8.6 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 3,728 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.
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.