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Ust-Aldansky Ulus fire, 31 July 2017 Tomponsky Ulus, Ust-Aldansky Ulus, Kobyaysky Ulus

Out · last detection 8 Aug 2017, 17:56 UTC

The fire started on 31 July 2017 in Ust-Aldansky Ulus, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,660 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 849th largest in Sakha Republic since 2016 (of 1422 with a page). Number 157 in Russia in 2017, of 369.

Burnt area
5,660ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
31 Jul 2017 – 8 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
3
districts
Started on
31 Jul
2017
Heat detections
745
in a single hotspot: 98 MW
Danger at start
7
Low · FWI index
Energy released
4.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Aug 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Jul8 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

312345678

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
52km/h · peak gust
31%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.5 mm on 9 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Tomponsky Ulus
    2,892 ha reached on 4 Aug
    0.0 %
  2. Ust-Aldansky Ulus where it started
    2,737 ha reached on 30 Jul
    0.2 %
  3. Kobyaysky Ulus
    49 ha
    0.0 %

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)
30 Jul 20.6 °C 31 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
31 Jul 22.4 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
1 Aug 21.4 °C 56 % 52 km/h 9.6 mm Very low 0
2 Aug 22.9 °C 41 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
3 Aug 25.2 °C 39 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
4 Aug 24.1 °C 40 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
5 Aug 23.9 °C 37 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
6 Aug 25.4 °C 34 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
7 Aug 26.7 °C 41 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
8 Aug 27.4 °C 41 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
9 Aug after 22.0 °C 61 % 31 km/h 4.5 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Jul 2017
After · 15 Aug 2017

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 · 745Every 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 Ust-Aldansky Ulus fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 31 July 2017 and 8 August 2017: 9 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 5,660 hectares (56.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Tomponsky Ulus (2,892 ha, 0.0 %); Ust-Aldansky Ulus (2,737 ha, 0.2 %); Kobyaysky Ulus (49 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.4 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 12, 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.