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Srednekolymsky Ulus fire, 17 June 2019 Srednekolymsky Ulus

Out · last detection 2 Jul 2019, 02:36 UTC

The fire started on 17 June 2019 in Srednekolymsky Ulus, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,497 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 944th largest in Sakha Republic since 2016 (of 1347 with a page). Number 384 in Russia in 2019, of 610.

Burnt area
4,497ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
17 Jun 2019 – 2 Jul 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
17 Jun
2019
Heat detections
450
in a single hotspot: 180 MW
Danger at start
23
High · FWI index
Average daily power
525MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Jun2 Jul
2 Jul 2019

How it evolved, day by day

17 Jun 2019 · 324 MW · 7 18 Jun 2019 · 3 MW · 1 19 Jun 2019 · 176 MW · 10 20 Jun 2019 · 109 MW · 17 21 Jun 2019 · 525 MW · 55 22 Jun 2019 · 590 MW · 61 23 Jun 2019 · 332 MW · 44 24 Jun 2019 · 177 MW · 18 25 Jun 2019 · 866 MW · 60 26 Jun 2019 · 1,403 MW · 95 27 Jun 2019 · 1,793 MW · 81 2 Jul 2019 · 4 MW · 1
17 Jun 20 Jun 23 Jun 27 Jun

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

The weather it burned in

27°high
51km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.8 mm on 4 Jul.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.8% of the area of London (45 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. Srednekolymsky Ulus where it started
    4,538 ha reached on 17 Jun
    0.0 %

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 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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)
17 Jun 26.6 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
18 Jun 22.8 °C 35 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
19 Jun 20.1 °C 53 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
20 Jun 20.9 °C 43 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
21 Jun 22.7 °C 45 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
22 Jun 21.6 °C 49 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
23 Jun 22.4 °C 38 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 17
24 Jun 23.8 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
25 Jun 25.9 °C 32 % 29 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 20
26 Jun 24.9 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
27 Jun 20.0 °C 38 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
28 Jun 14.6 °C 58 % 45 km/h 1.1 mm Low 10
29 Jun 15.2 °C 59 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm Low 11
30 Jun 12.6 °C 60 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
1 Jul 14.6 °C 54 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
2 Jul 16.8 °C 55 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
3 Jul after 14.2 °C 58 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
4 Jul after 12.3 °C 59 % 28 km/h 1.8 mm Very low 5

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 22.9, a minimum humidity of 24% and 4 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2019: 20.

FWI at the start 22.9
Minimum humidity 24 %
Days without rain 4
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Verkhnekolymsky Ulus fire, June 2020
4,448 ha 12 days FWI 22.9 Min. humidity 23 % 247 km away, in 2020

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.0 mm on 2 Jul.

What happened to them

11 days
median duration
5,581 ha
median area
30 %
went past 10,000 ha
10.5 mm
rain at the end (median; 20 of 20 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (4,497 ha against a median of 5,581 ha) and lasted 16 days, against 11 days.

All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 10.5 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

1.8 mmfirst rain
4 Jul2 days after it ended
51km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 2 Jul, and on 4 Jul 1.8 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 20 of 20, with a median of 10.5 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 2019.
  • 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 · 10 Jun 2019
After · 9 Jul 2019

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 · 450Every 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 Srednekolymsky Ulus fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 17 June 2019 to 2 July 2019 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 June 2019 to 27 June 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,497 hectares (45.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Srednekolymsky Ulus (4,538 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 26.6 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, 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 2019 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 20. Their median duration was 11 days and their median area 5,581 ha; 30 % went past 10,000 ha. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 10.5 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 27 June 2019 → 2 July 2019.
  2. Start date: 19 June 2019 → 17 June 2019.

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 19 June 2019 to 27 June 2019. 450 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 2020, 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.