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Svobodnensky District fire, 10 May 2025 Svobodnensky District, Shimanovsky District

Out · last detection 13 May 2025, 04:52 UTC

The fire started on 10 May 2025 in Svobodnensky District, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 20,846 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 62th largest in Amur Oblast since 2016 (of 491 with a page). Number 31 in Russia in 2025, of 238.

Burnt area
20,846ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
10 May 2025 – 13 May 2025
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
10 May
2025
Heat detections
1,000
in a single hotspot: 438 MW
Danger at start
12
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
6.8GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 May13 May
13 May 2025

How it evolved, day by day

10 May 2025 · 1,873 MW · 321 11 May 2025 · 23,388 MW · 550 12 May 2025 · 1,864 MW · 112 13 May 2025 · 146 MW · 17
10 May 11 May 12 May 13 May

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
52km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.4 mm on 14 May.

This area had burned before

52% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,670 ha in 2016, 6,994 ha in 2018, 172 ha in 2019, 303 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,941 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 13% of the area of London (208 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. Svobodnensky District where it started
    19,644 ha reached on 10 May
    2.7 %
  2. 1,254 ha reached on 10 May
    0.1 %

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 2025
Built-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)
9 May 18.4 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 12
10 May 22.5 °C 11 % 52 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 19
11 May 17.5 °C 18 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
12 May 20.7 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
13 May 23.9 °C 23 % 50 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 19
14 May after 17.4 °C 25 % 47 km/h 11.4 mm Very low 1

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 11.9, a minimum humidity of 11% and 7 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 26.

FWI at the start 11.9
Minimum humidity 11 %
Days without rain 7
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Svobodnensky District fire, April 2019
10,116 ha 8 days FWI 10.9 Min. humidity 11 % 29 km away, in 2019

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 13.1 mm on 8 May.

What happened to them

4 days
median duration
4,860 ha
median area
27 %
went past 10,000 ha
4.0 mm
rain at the end (median; 21 of 26 had it)

It was 4.3 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 4 days, against 4 days.

Only 4 of its 26 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 5 of 26, 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 4.0 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

11.4 mmfirst rain
14 Maythe day after it ended
52km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 13 May, and on 14 May 11.4 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 21 of 26, with a median of 4.0 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 · 3 May 2025
After · 20 May 2025

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 11 May 2025 the air beside the fire reached 542 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 198: 13 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak542 µg/m³
Days over the guideline8 days
PM10546 µg/m³
Optical depth3.07
8 May10 May12 May14 May16 May
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 · 1,000Every 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 Svobodnensky District fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 May 2025 and 13 May 2025: 4 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 20,846 hectares (208.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Svobodnensky District (19,644 ha, 2.7 %); Shimanovsky District (1,254 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 23.9 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 52 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.
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: 26. Their median duration was 4 days and their median area 4,860 ha; 27 % went past 10,000 ha. Only 4 of its 26 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 5 of 26, 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 4.0 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.

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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 1,000 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.

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.