How long did the Ust-Ilimsky fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 August 2018 and 13 August 2018: 5 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 15,319 hectares (153.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Ust-Ilimsky (15,355 ha, 0.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 29.8 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 21, 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.

RU · Russia · 2018-08-09 → 2018-08-13

Ust-Ilimsky fire, 9 August 2018 Ust-Ilimsky

Out · last detection 13 Aug 2018, 19:02 UTC

The fire started on 9 August 2018 in Ust-Ilimsky, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,319 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 71th largest in Irkutsk Oblast since 2016 (of 428 with a page). Number 78 in Russia in 2018, of 540.

Burnt area: 15,319ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 5days; 9 Aug 2018 – 13 Aug 2018
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 9 Aug; 2018
Heat detections: 1,973; in a single hotspot: 334 MW
Danger at start: 9; Low · FWI index
Energy released: 23.9GW; sum of detected power

Play back 13 Aug 2018

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Aug13 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

910111213

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

The weather it burned in

30°high

40km/h · peak gust

26%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 18.0 mm on 14 Aug.

This area had burned before

7% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,090 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

Ust-Ilimsky where it started

15,355 ha reached on 9 Aug

0.4 %

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)
9 Aug	21.1 °C	35 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
10 Aug	24.3 °C	34 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
11 Aug	27.9 °C	35 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
12 Aug	29.8 °C	26 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
13 Aug	29.0 °C	33 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
14 Aug after	17.7 °C	76 %	29 km/h	18.0 mm	Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 2 Aug 2018

After · 20 Aug 2018

Before After

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 · 1,973Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Russia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ust-Ilimsky fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 August 2018 and 13 August 2018: 5 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 15,319 hectares (153.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Ust-Ilimsky (15,355 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 29.8 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 21, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

Where it burned