Burned area
satellite only14,295ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 7 May 2023 – 12 May 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
RU · Russia · –
Sorokinsky District fire, 7 May 2023 Vikulovsky District, Sorokinsky District
Out · last detection 13 May 2023, 22:14 UTC
The fire started on 7 May 2023 in Sorokinsky District, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,295 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 14th largest in Tyumen Oblast since 2016 (of 101 with a page). Number 62 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 only6days
7 May 2023 to 12 May 2023: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 13 May 2023, 22:14 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 only7 May 2023
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 7 May 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only711
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 118 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 7 May 2023 – 12 May 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 only7,545MW
Total radiative power on 10 May 2023; hotspots that day: 389.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 10 May 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
model46.1FWI · very high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 13.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 7 May 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
model28.4°C · 9% RH
High of 28.4 °C and minimum humidity of 9% on 7 May 2023; gusts of 53 km/h on 7 May 2023.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 7 May 2023 – 12 May 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 weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
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
- 14,295 ha
- Dates
- 7 May 2023 – 12 May 2023
- Name
- Sorokinsky District
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/sorokinsky-district-2023-05-4?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 sorokinsky-district-2023-05-4.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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-05-07 | 51 | 122 | 28.4 | 9.3 | 9 | 26.1 | 52.9 | 0 | 46.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-05-08 | 102 | 1,235 | 20.5 | 5.7 | 22 | 23.8 | 47.5 | 0 | 39.2 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-05-09 | 84 | 504 | 10.2 | -1.6 | 23 | 16.3 | 38.2 | 0 | 27.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-05-10 | 389 | 7,545 | 14.5 | -4.9 | 18 | 10.5 | 28.4 | 0 | 22.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-05-11 | 38 | 276 | 16.8 | 0.5 | 21 | 21.6 | 42.8 | 0.1 | 25.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-05-12 | 45 | 793 | 11.4 | -0.8 | 24 | 14.1 | 31 | 0 | 22.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-05-13 | 2 | 6 | 13.8 | 1 | 21 | 18.7 | 42.1 | 0 | 30.7 | alto | 0 |
| 2023-05-14 | 0 | 0 | 17.6 | 0.4 | 21 | 16.8 | 34.6 | 0 | 26 | alto | 0 |
| 2023-05-15 | 0 | 0 | 16.3 | 3.6 | 26 | 15.8 | 37.4 | 0 | 24.4 | alto | 0 |
| 2023-05-16 | 0 | 0 | 18.6 | 6.3 | 26 | 21.6 | 45 | 0 | 32.4 | alto | 0 |
| 2023-05-17 | 0 | 0 | 14.5 | 0.8 | 26 | 13.6 | 32 | 0 | 25.4 | alto | 0 |
| 2023-05-18 | 0 | 0 | 16.3 | 2.3 | 20 | 16.2 | 36.4 | 0 | 28.9 | alto | 0 |
| 2023-05-19 | 0 | 0 | 20.5 | 2 | 15 | 13.8 | 33.8 | 0 | 29.8 | alto | 0 |
| 2023-05-20 | 0 | 0 | 23.4 | 1.9 | 17 | 12.9 | 31.3 | 0 | 35.8 | alto | 0 |
| 2023-05-21 | 0 | 0 | 25.2 | 8.1 | 16 | 9.3 | 23.8 | 0 | 34.3 | alto | 0 |
| 2023-05-22 | 0 | 0 | 26.2 | 6.1 | 17 | 9.3 | 22 | 0 | 34.8 | alto | 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
- 14,295ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 6days
- 7 May 2023 – 12 May 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 7 May
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 711
- in a single hotspot: 118 MW
- Danger at start
- 46
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.5GW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
7 May12 May
13 May 2023
How it evolved, day by day
7 May
10 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
28°high
53km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity
It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
41% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,611 ha in 2021, 624 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,903 ha that had burned before.
- 3,374 ha Vikulovsky District fire, April 2021 11,356 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,170 ha Vikulovsky District fire, April 2021 3,679 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 67 ha Vikulovsky District fire, April 2021 6,462 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
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
-
12,248 ha reached on 7 May2.1 %
-
Sorokinsky District where it started2,002 ha reached on 7 May0.7 %
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)
Started with Strong wind: 9.7 % of the area in Russia Very dry air: 5.9 % of the area in Russia
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 May | 28.4 °C | 9 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 8 May | 20.5 °C | 22 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 9 May | 10.2 °C | 23 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 10 May | 14.5 °C | 18 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 11 May | 16.8 °C | 21 % | 43 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 25 |
| 12 May | 11.4 °C | 24 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 13 May after | 13.8 °C | 21 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 14 May after | 17.6 °C | 21 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 15 May after | 16.3 °C | 26 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 16 May after | 18.6 °C | 26 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 17 May after | 14.5 °C | 26 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 18 May after | 16.3 °C | 20 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 19 May after | 20.5 °C | 15 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 20 May after | 23.4 °C | 17 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 21 May after | 25.2 °C | 16 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 22 May after | 26.2 °C | 17 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 46.1, a minimum humidity of 9% and 13 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2018: 3.
FWI at the start
46.1
Minimum humidity
9 %
Days without rain
13
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Sorokinsky District fire, 7 May 2023
14,295 ha
6 days
FWI 46.1
Min. humidity 9 %
Aromashevsky District fire, May 2022
5,284 ha
1 day
FWI 46.0
Min. humidity 14 %
56 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.3 mm on 14 May.
Vagaysky District fire, May 2021
3,960 ha
5 days
FWI 37.0
Min. humidity 14 %
78 km away, in 2021
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.1 mm on 26 May.
Golyshmanovsky District fire, May 2021
7,280 ha
3 days
FWI 52.3
Min. humidity 19 %
111 km away, in 2021
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.7 mm on 18 May.
What happened to them
Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 3. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.
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
—first rain
—no rain in ten days
53km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 12 May, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain.
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 2018.
- 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 · 30 Apr 2023
After · 19 May 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 9 May 2023 the air beside the fire reached 218 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 79: 5.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak218 µg/m³
Days over the guideline11 days
PM10312 µg/m³
Optical depth2.02
WHO 15
5 May8 May11 May14 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 · 711Every 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
- 11,356 haVikulovsky District20 April 2021 · 4 days · 5 km away
- 6,462 haVikulovsky District17 April 2021 · 8 days · 14 km away
- 4,763 haVagaysky District26 April 2021 · 7 days · 20 km away
- 22,340 haSorokinsky District15 April 2021 · 3 days · 25 km away
- 6,971 haVikulovsky District10 May 2023 · 10 days · 25 km away
- 8,578 haSorokinsky District23 April 2021 · 6 days · 28 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Sorokinsky District fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 May 2023 and 12 May 2023: 6 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 14,295 hectares (143.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Vikulovsky District (12,248 ha, 2.1 %); Sorokinsky District (2,002 ha, 0.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 28.4 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, class Very 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 · 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. 711 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.