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Ust-Maysky Ulus fire, 30 June 2023 Ust-Maysky Ulus

Out · last detection 15 Jul 2023, 01:59 UTC

The fire started on 30 June 2023 in Ust-Maysky Ulus, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,761 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1115th largest in Sakha Republic since 2016 (of 1347 with a page). Number 332 in Russia in 2023, of 450.

Compare with…
Burnt area
3,761ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
30 Jun 2023 – 15 Jul 2023
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
30 Jun
2023
Heat detections
373
in a single hotspot: 211 MW
Danger at start
9
Low · FWI index
Average daily power
334MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Jun15 Jul
15 Jul 2023

How it evolved, day by day

30 Jun 2023 · 28 MW · 10 1 Jul 2023 · 244 MW · 22 2 Jul 2023 · 201 MW · 26 3 Jul 2023 · 2,480 MW · 88 4 Jul 2023 · 160 MW · 27 5 Jul 2023 · 34 MW · 9 6 Jul 2023 · 89 MW · 36 7 Jul 2023 · 1,223 MW · 90 10 Jul 2023 · 18 MW · 8 11 Jul 2023 · 161 MW · 42 12 Jul 2023 · 13 MW · 7 13 Jul 2023 · 2 MW · 2 14 Jul 2023 · 7 MW · 4 15 Jul 2023 · 16 MW · 2
30 Jun 3 Jul 6 Jul 11 Jul 14 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

28°high
52km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 22.0 mm on 16 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 2.4% of the area of London (38 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
    3,839 ha reached on 30 Jun
    0.0 %

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 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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 Jun 24.6 °C 37 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
1 Jul 26.2 °C 35 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
2 Jul 26.5 °C 38 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
3 Jul 28.4 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
4 Jul 25.5 °C 43 % 38 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 18
5 Jul 23.4 °C 48 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 16
6 Jul 24.1 °C 38 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
7 Jul 23.6 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
8 Jul 14.5 °C 75 % 32 km/h 7.7 mm Very low 0
9 Jul 8.8 °C 79 % 52 km/h 3.9 mm Very low 0
10 Jul 16.6 °C 34 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
11 Jul 19.1 °C 48 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
12 Jul 21.0 °C 44 % 36 km/h 2.1 mm Very low 3
13 Jul 22.0 °C 52 % 31 km/h 0.3 mm Very low 5
14 Jul 20.3 °C 64 % 33 km/h 1.1 mm Very low 4
15 Jul 20.2 °C 59 % 45 km/h 0.4 mm Low 7
16 Jul after 15.2 °C 78 % 41 km/h 22.0 mm Very low 0

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 9.4, a minimum humidity of 37% and 1 day without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 22.

FWI at the start 9.4
Minimum humidity 37 %
Days without rain 1
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Ust-Maysky Ulus fire, July 2023
12,583 ha 20 days FWI 9.0 Min. humidity 37 % 197 km away, in 2023

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 4.6 mm on 14 Aug.

What happened to them

15 days
median duration
6,214 ha
median area
27 %
went past 10,000 ha
5.8 mm
rain at the end (median; 22 of 22 had it)

It stayed below its twins: 3,761 ha against a median of 6,214 ha. It lasted 16 days, against 15 days.

All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 5.8 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

22.0 mmfirst rain
16 Julthe day after it ended
52km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 15 Jul, and on 16 Jul 22.0 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 22 of 22, with a median of 5.8 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 · 23 Jun 2023
After · 22 Jul 2023

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 8 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 82 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 40: 2.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak82 µg/m³
Days over the guideline11 days
PM10118 µg/m³
Optical depth2.13
28 Jun2 Jul6 Jul10 Jul
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 373Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ust-Maysky Ulus fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 June 2023 to 15 July 2023 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 30 June 2023 to 10 July 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,761 hectares (37.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ust-Maysky Ulus (3,839 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.4 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 52 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 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 22. Their median duration was 15 days and their median area 6,214 ha; 27 % went past 10,000 ha. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 5.8 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. Last day with fire: 10 July 2023 → 15 July 2023.

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.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 30 June 2023 to 10 July 2023. 373 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 2025, 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.