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Suntarsky Ulus fire, 20 July 2019 Suntarsky Ulus

Out · last detection 31 Jul 2019, 05:13 UTC

The fire started on 20 July 2019 in Suntarsky Ulus, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,307 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 639th largest in Sakha Republic since 2016 (of 1347 with a page). Number 242 in Russia in 2019, of 610.

Burnt area
7,307ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
20 Jul 2019 – 31 Jul 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
20 Jul
2019
Heat detections
756
in a single hotspot: 368 MW
Danger at start
16
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
876MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Jul31 Jul
31 Jul 2019

How it evolved, day by day

20 Jul 2019 · 154 MW · 18 21 Jul 2019 · 53 MW · 12 22 Jul 2019 · 17 MW · 7 23 Jul 2019 · 26 MW · 15 24 Jul 2019 · 6,666 MW · 106 25 Jul 2019 · 759 MW · 127 26 Jul 2019 · 979 MW · 150 27 Jul 2019 · 483 MW · 84 28 Jul 2019 · 904 MW · 136 29 Jul 2019 · 104 MW · 26 30 Jul 2019 · 257 MW · 57 31 Jul 2019 · 106 MW · 18
20 Jul 24 Jul 29 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

31°high
39km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 1 Aug.

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 4.6% of the area of London (73 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. Suntarsky Ulus where it started
    7,087 ha reached on 20 Jul
    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 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)
20 Jul 21.0 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
21 Jul 23.8 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
22 Jul 27.1 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
23 Jul 26.9 °C 28 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
24 Jul 28.5 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
25 Jul 28.8 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
26 Jul 28.6 °C 34 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
27 Jul 28.3 °C 38 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
28 Jul 30.7 °C 38 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
29 Jul 21.5 °C 52 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
30 Jul 20.6 °C 38 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
31 Jul 21.5 °C 43 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
1 Aug after 22.0 °C 58 % 35 km/h 1.5 mm Low 7

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 16.0, a minimum humidity of 31% and 1 day without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 20.

FWI at the start 16.0
Minimum humidity 31 %
Days without rain 1
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Suntarsky Ulus fire, August 2017
4,244 ha 9 days FWI 16.3 Min. humidity 31 % 165 km away, in 2017

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.9 mm on 18 Aug.

What happened to them

10 days
median duration
4,737 ha
median area
10 %
went past 10,000 ha
4.2 mm
rain at the end (median; 20 of 20 had it)

It was 1.5 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 12 days, against 10 days.

Only 7 of its 20 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 4.2 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

1.5 mmfirst rain
1 Augthe day after it ended
39km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 31 Jul, and on 1 Aug 1.5 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 4.2 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 · 13 Jul 2019
After · 7 Aug 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 · 756Every 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 Suntarsky Ulus fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 July 2019 and 31 July 2019: 12 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 7,307 hectares (73.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Suntarsky Ulus (7,087 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.7 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, 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: 20. Their median duration was 10 days and their median area 4,737 ha; 10 % went past 10,000 ha. Only 7 of its 20 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 4.2 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. 756 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.