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Tomponsky Ulus fire, 14 September 2020 Tomponsky Ulus

Out · last detection 26 Sept 2020, 18:28 UTC

The fire started on 14 September 2020 in Tomponsky Ulus, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 19,125 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 286th largest in Sakha Republic since 2016 (of 1422 with a page). Number 68 in Russia in 2020, of 594.

Burnt area
19,125ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
14 Sept 2020 – 26 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
14 Sept
2020
Heat detections
2,653
in a single hotspot: 108 MW
Danger at start
1
Very low · FWI index
Energy released
13.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Sept 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Sept26 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

141617181920212223242526

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

The weather it burned in

21°high
42km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.9 mm on 27 Sept.

This area had burned before

4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 692 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Tomponsky Ulus where it started
    18,445 ha reached on 7 Sept
    0.1 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

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)
7 Sept 17.4 °C 44 % 28 km/h 1.8 mm Very low 1
8 Sept 16.6 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
9 Sept 18.5 °C 33 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
10 Sept 20.2 °C 27 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
11 Sept 20.2 °C 23 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
12 Sept 20.0 °C 28 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
13 Sept 20.6 °C 24 % 18 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 14
14 Sept 14.5 °C 48 % 42 km/h 0.9 mm Low 8
15 Sept 10.9 °C 70 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
16 Sept 14.4 °C 48 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
17 Sept 16.4 °C 35 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
18 Sept 18.0 °C 24 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
19 Sept 19.3 °C 20 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
20 Sept 20.5 °C 24 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
21 Sept 16.0 °C 36 % 13 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
22 Sept 13.0 °C 57 % 11 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
23 Sept 10.7 °C 50 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
24 Sept 12.7 °C 40 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
25 Sept 14.4 °C 37 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
26 Sept 14.1 °C 33 % 33 km/h 0.9 mm Low 10
27 Sept after 16.0 °C 43 % 37 km/h 2.9 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 7 Sept 2020
After · 3 Oct 2020

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 · 2,653Every 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 Tomponsky Ulus fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 September 2020 and 26 September 2020: 13 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 19,125 hectares (191.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Tomponsky Ulus (18,445 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 20.6 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 17, 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.

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

Satellite cross-check

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.

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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.

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.