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Усть-Удинский район fire, 11 September 2016 Усть-Удинский район

Out · last detection 28 Sept 2016, 21:08 UTC

The fire started on 11 September 2016 in Усть-Удинский район, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,297 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 120th largest in Irkutsk Oblast since 2016 (of 421 with a page). Number 224 in Russia in 2016, of 692.

Burnt area
9,297ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
18days
11 Sept 2016 – 28 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
11 Sept
2016
Heat detections
1,692
in a single hotspot: 736 MW
Danger at start
7
Low · FWI index
Average daily power
1.2GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Sept28 Sept
28 Sept 2016

How it evolved, day by day

11 Sept 2016 · 12 MW · 4 12 Sept 2016 · 7 MW · 5 13 Sept 2016 · 4 MW · 3 14 Sept 2016 · 14 MW · 7 15 Sept 2016 · 45 MW · 13 16 Sept 2016 · 84 MW · 18 17 Sept 2016 · 229 MW · 47 18 Sept 2016 · 518 MW · 89 19 Sept 2016 · 2,568 MW · 155 20 Sept 2016 · 495 MW · 52 21 Sept 2016 · 529 MW · 56 22 Sept 2016 · 152 MW · 34 23 Sept 2016 · 551 MW · 56 24 Sept 2016 · 3,148 MW · 147 25 Sept 2016 · 2,323 MW · 211 26 Sept 2016 · 5,002 MW · 209 27 Sept 2016 · 4,679 MW · 310 28 Sept 2016 · 1,588 MW · 276
11 Sept 15 Sept 19 Sept 23 Sept 26 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

20°high
41km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.0 mm on 29 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 5.9% of the area of London (93 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. 9,408 ha reached on 11 Sept
    0.4 %

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 2015
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, 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)
11 Sept 20.5 °C 34 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
12 Sept 18.5 °C 36 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
13 Sept 14.6 °C 41 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
14 Sept 16.2 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
15 Sept 17.9 °C 33 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
16 Sept 19.0 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
17 Sept 19.3 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
18 Sept 20.2 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
19 Sept 20.0 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 13
20 Sept 15.2 °C 45 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
21 Sept 13.4 °C 52 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
22 Sept 11.3 °C 45 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
23 Sept 8.5 °C 44 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
24 Sept 8.5 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
25 Sept 5.7 °C 31 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 11
26 Sept 7.0 °C 29 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
27 Sept 10.2 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
28 Sept 10.2 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
29 Sept after 6.5 °C 64 % 46 km/h 3.0 mm Moderate 17

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 7.3, a minimum humidity of 34% and 11 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 17.

FWI at the start 7.3
Minimum humidity 34 %
Days without rain 11
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Усть-Удинский район fire, June 2017
21,941 ha 16 days FWI 4.9 Min. humidity 35 % 60 km away, in 2017

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 12.2 mm on 2 Jul.

What happened to them

12 days
median duration
5,969 ha
median area
29 %
went past 10,000 ha
10.4 mm
rain at the end (median; 17 of 17 had it)

It was 1.6 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 18 days, against 12 days.

Only 5 of its 17 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 10.4 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

3.0 mmfirst rain
29 Septthe day after it ended
41km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 28 Sept, and on 29 Sept 3.0 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 10.4 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 · 4 Sept 2016
After · 5 Oct 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 · 1,692Every 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 Усть-Удинский район fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 September 2016 and 28 September 2016: 18 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 9,297 hectares (93.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Усть-Удинский район (9,408 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 20.5 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 17, 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: 17. Their median duration was 12 days and their median area 5,969 ha; 29 % went past 10,000 ha. Only 5 of its 17 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 10.4 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. 1,692 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 2015, 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.