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Ust-Ilimsky fire, 21 July 2016 Ust-Ilimsky

Out · last detection 30 Jul 2016, 06:03 UTC

The fire started on 21 July 2016 in Ust-Ilimsky, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,028 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 425th largest in Irkutsk Oblast since 2016 (of 428 with a page). Number 689 in Russia in 2016, of 694.

Burnt area
3,028ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
21 Jul 2016 – 30 Jul 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
21 Jul
2016
Heat detections
285
in a single hotspot: 83 MW
Danger at start
18
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

30 Jul 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Jul30 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

21222324252627282930

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
37km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.9 mm on 1 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. Ust-Ilimsky where it started
    3,010 ha reached on 21 Jul
    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)
21 Jul 24.9 °C 33 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
22 Jul 22.9 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
23 Jul 24.5 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
24 Jul 25.4 °C 41 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
25 Jul 25.1 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
26 Jul 27.6 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
27 Jul 26.8 °C 47 % 18 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 19
28 Jul 23.1 °C 61 % 31 km/h 5.5 mm Very low 2
29 Jul 20.5 °C 49 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
30 Jul 22.7 °C 45 % 33 km/h 1.4 mm Low 7
31 Jul after 23.1 °C 59 % 36 km/h 0.4 mm Low 11
1 Aug after 20.0 °C 70 % 46 km/h 3.9 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Jul 2016
After · 6 Aug 2016

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 · 285Every 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-Ilimsky fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 July 2016 and 30 July 2016: 10 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 3,028 hectares (30.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ust-Ilimsky (3,010 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.6 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 23, 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.

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.

Report an error
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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.