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Ust-Maysky Ulus fire, 30 August 2021 Ust-Maysky Ulus

Out · last detection 14 Sept 2021, 04:22 UTC

The fire started on 30 August 2021 in Ust-Maysky Ulus, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,779 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 605th largest in Sakha Republic since 2016 (of 1347 with a page). Number 230 in Russia in 2021, of 581.

Burnt area
7,779ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
30 Aug 2021 – 14 Sept 2021
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
30 Aug
2021
Heat detections
752
in a single hotspot: 92 MW
Danger at start
12
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
341MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Aug14 Sept
14 Sept 2021

How it evolved, day by day

30 Aug 2021 · 21 MW · 7 1 Sept 2021 · 5 MW · 5 2 Sept 2021 · 331 MW · 70 3 Sept 2021 · 1,421 MW · 185 6 Sept 2021 · 3 MW · 1 7 Sept 2021 · 4 MW · 1 8 Sept 2021 · 94 MW · 18 9 Sept 2021 · 419 MW · 54 10 Sept 2021 · 346 MW · 56 11 Sept 2021 · 226 MW · 63 12 Sept 2021 · 780 MW · 123 13 Sept 2021 · 694 MW · 152 14 Sept 2021 · 95 MW · 17
30 Aug 3 Sept 8 Sept 11 Sept 14 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

25°high
32km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.4 mm on 17 Sept.

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 4.9% of the area of London (78 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. Ust-Maysky Ulus where it started
    8,237 ha reached on 30 Aug
    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)
30 Aug 18.1 °C 38 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
31 Aug 15.6 °C 42 % 32 km/h 3.1 mm Very low 4
1 Sept 18.2 °C 40 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
2 Sept 20.6 °C 37 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
3 Sept 24.8 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 19
4 Sept 14.3 °C 57 % 27 km/h 5.3 mm Low 6
5 Sept 11.6 °C 53 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm Very low 2
6 Sept 15.7 °C 39 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
7 Sept 17.8 °C 34 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
8 Sept 19.9 °C 37 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
9 Sept 16.2 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
10 Sept 17.8 °C 42 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
11 Sept 18.5 °C 36 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
12 Sept 19.0 °C 33 % 14 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
13 Sept 20.3 °C 32 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
14 Sept 16.9 °C 50 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
15 Sept after 17.2 °C 48 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
16 Sept after 18.4 °C 47 % 26 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 11
17 Sept after 11.9 °C 81 % 36 km/h 11.4 mm Very low 0

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 12.0, a minimum humidity of 38% and 2 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2017: 34.

FWI at the start 12.0
Minimum humidity 38 %
Days without rain 2
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Ust-Maysky Ulus fire, June 2021
3,992 ha 15 days FWI 11.6 Min. humidity 37 % 197 km away, in 2021

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 13.9 mm on 11 Jul.

What happened to them

16 days
median duration
6,951 ha
median area
41 %
went past 10,000 ha
7.3 mm
rain at the end (median; 32 of 34 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (7,779 ha against a median of 6,951 ha) and lasted 16 days, against 16 days.

In 2 of 34, 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 7.3 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

11.4 mmfirst rain
17 Sept3 days after it ended
32km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 14 Sept, and on 17 Sept 11.4 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 32 of 34, with a median of 7.3 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 2017.
  • 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 · 23 Aug 2021
After · 21 Sept 2021

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 · 752Every 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-Maysky Ulus fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 August 2021 and 14 September 2021: 16 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 7,779 hectares (77.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ust-Maysky Ulus (8,237 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 24.8 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 19, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2017 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 34. Their median duration was 16 days and their median area 6,951 ha; 41 % went past 10,000 ha. In 2 of 34, 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 7.3 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Area: 8,348 → 7,779 ha.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 752 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.