Skip to content
worldfires
RU · Russia · –

Ust-Maysky Ulus fire, 31 July 2023 Ust-Maysky Ulus

Out · last detection 13 Aug 2023, 18:23 UTC

The fire started on 31 July 2023 in Ust-Maysky Ulus, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,432 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 450th largest in Sakha Republic since 2016 (of 1347 with a page). Number 100 in Russia in 2023, of 450.

Burnt area
10,432ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
31 Jul 2023 – 13 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
31 Jul
2023
Heat detections
1,753
in a single hotspot: 162 MW
Danger at start
25
High · FWI index
Average daily power
1.2GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Jul13 Aug
13 Aug 2023

How it evolved, day by day

31 Jul 2023 · 4 MW · 4 1 Aug 2023 · 48 MW · 3 2 Aug 2023 · 4 MW · 1 4 Aug 2023 · 24 MW · 15 5 Aug 2023 · 406 MW · 72 6 Aug 2023 · 1,520 MW · 176 7 Aug 2023 · 547 MW · 94 8 Aug 2023 · 648 MW · 124 9 Aug 2023 · 1,211 MW · 169 10 Aug 2023 · 1,220 MW · 173 11 Aug 2023 · 645 MW · 175 12 Aug 2023 · 2,411 MW · 366 13 Aug 2023 · 7,359 MW · 381
31 Jul 4 Aug 7 Aug 10 Aug 13 Aug

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
44km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.0 mm on 14 Aug.

This area had burned before

16% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,692 ha in 2021.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 6.6% of the area of London (104 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
    10,422 ha reached on 31 Jul
    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 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)
31 Jul 25.4 °C 35 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
1 Aug 17.6 °C 47 % 34 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 16
2 Aug 19.4 °C 50 % 31 km/h 2.7 mm Very low 4
3 Aug 21.8 °C 43 % 29 km/h 0.5 mm Low 10
4 Aug 25.7 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
5 Aug 28.6 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
6 Aug 28.0 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
7 Aug 24.0 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
8 Aug 19.1 °C 39 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
9 Aug 23.2 °C 25 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
10 Aug 24.0 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.6 mm High 25
11 Aug 22.7 °C 43 % 37 km/h 1.9 mm Low 9
12 Aug 27.7 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
13 Aug 29.7 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Aug after 22.0 °C 39 % 41 km/h 4.0 mm Low 6

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 24.8, a minimum humidity of 35% and 9 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2017: 17.

FWI at the start 24.8
Minimum humidity 35 %
Days without rain 9
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Ust-Maysky Ulus fire, June 2021
43,982 ha 23 days FWI 21.3 Min. humidity 35 % 11 km away, in 2021

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 16.8 mm on 16 Jul.

What happened to them

10 days
median duration
8,123 ha
median area
35 %
went past 10,000 ha
4.1 mm
rain at the end (median; 17 of 17 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (10,432 ha against a median of 8,123 ha) and lasted 14 days, against 10 days.

All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 4.1 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

4.0 mmfirst rain
14 Augthe day after it ended
44km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 13 Aug, and on 14 Aug 4.0 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 17 of 17, with a median of 4.1 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 · 24 Jul 2023
After · 20 Aug 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 16 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 920 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 386: 26 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak920 µg/m³
Days over the guideline17 days
PM101,315 µg/m³
Optical depth8.34
29 Jul2 Aug6 Aug10 Aug14 Aug
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 · 1,753Every 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 31 July 2023 and 13 August 2023: 14 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 10,432 hectares (104.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ust-Maysky Ulus (10,422 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.7 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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.
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: 17. Their median duration was 10 days and their median area 8,123 ha; 35 % 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 4.1 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 1,753 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.