Skip to content
worldfires
KZ · Kazakhstan · –

Ulytauskiy fire, 23 July 2019 Ұлытау ауданы · Ulytauskiy

Out · last detection 25 Jul 2019, 22:40 UTC

The fire started on 23 July 2019 in Ulytauskiy, Kazakhstan, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,003 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 17th largest in Karaganda Region since 2016 (of 210 with a page). Number 8 in Kazakhstan in 2019, of 163.

Burnt area
15,003ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
23 Jul 2019 – 25 Jul 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
23 Jul
2019
Heat detections
628
in a single hotspot: 276 MW
Danger at start
66
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
7.2GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jul25 Jul
25 Jul 2019

How it evolved, day by day

23 Jul 2019 · 6,964 MW · 163 24 Jul 2019 · 14,032 MW · 418 25 Jul 2019 · 513 MW · 47
23 Jul 24 Jul 25 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

37°high
52km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 29 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 9.5% of the area of London (150 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. Ulytauskiy Ұлытау ауданы where it started
    14,928 ha reached on 23 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)
21 Jul 37.0 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
22 Jul 31.7 °C 19 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
23 Jul 30.6 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
24 Jul 33.4 °C 15 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
25 Jul 31.7 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
26 Jul after 31.0 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
27 Jul after 33.4 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
28 Jul after 33.7 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.7 mm Extreme 54
29 Jul after 30.5 °C 32 % 56 km/h 1.5 mm Very high 39

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 66.5, a minimum humidity of 23% and 18 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 18.

FWI at the start 66.5
Minimum humidity 23 %
Days without rain 18
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Ulytauskiy fire, August 2017
7,452 ha 1 day FWI 66.2 Min. humidity 20 % 29 km away, in 2017

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.0 mm on 14 Aug.

What happened to them

3 days
median duration
4,689 ha
median area
11 %
went past 10,000 ha
2.0 mm
rain at the end (median; 12 of 18 had it)

It was 3.2 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 3 days, against 3 days.

Only 1 of its 18 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 6 of 18, 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 2.0 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

1.5 mmfirst rain
29 Jul4 days after it ended
52km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 25 Jul, and on 29 Jul 1.5 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 12 of 18, with a median of 2.0 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 · 16 Jul 2019
After · 1 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 · 628Every 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 Kazakhstan

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ulytauskiy fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 July 2019 and 25 July 2019: 3 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 15,003 hectares (150.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ulytauskiy (14,928 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 67, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Kazakhstan (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: 18. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 4,689 ha; 11 % went past 10,000 ha. Only 1 of its 18 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 6 of 18, 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 2.0 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. 628 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.