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KZ · Kazakhstan · –

Zhanaarkinskiy fire, June 2017 Жаңаарқа ауданы · Zhanaarkinskiy

Out · last detection 5 Jul 2017, 20:21 UTC

The fire started on 30 June 2017 in Zhanaarkinskiy, Kazakhstan, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 20,511 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 7th largest in Karaganda Region since 2016 (of 210 with a page). Number 11 in Kazakhstan in 2017, of 239.

Burnt area
20,511ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
30 Jun 2017 – 4 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
30 Jun
2017
Heat detections
949
in a single hotspot: 278 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
3.3GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Jun4 Jul
5 Jul 2017

How it evolved, day by day

30 Jun 2017 · 23 MW · 16 1 Jul 2017 · 1,162 MW · 54 2 Jul 2017 · 9,004 MW · 289 3 Jul 2017 · 6,584 MW · 405 4 Jul 2017 · 2,765 MW · 183 5 Jul 2017 · 6 MW · 2
30 Jun 2 Jul 4 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

38°high
47km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.0 mm on 13 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 13% of the area of London (205 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. Zhanaarkinskiy Жаңаарқа ауданы where it started
    20,244 ha reached on 30 Jun
    0.3 %

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)
30 Jun 34.3 °C 17 % 20 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 42
1 Jul 34.2 °C 16 % 47 km/h 0.5 mm Extreme 60
2 Jul 32.0 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
3 Jul 35.7 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
4 Jul 38.2 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
5 Jul after 35.8 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
6 Jul after 40.4 °C 13 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 70
7 Jul after 36.5 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
8 Jul after 35.5 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
9 Jul after 38.4 °C 12 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 86
10 Jul after 31.5 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
11 Jul after 29.2 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Jul after 29.4 °C 22 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
13 Jul after 26.2 °C 29 % 51 km/h 5.0 mm Moderate 14

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 41.5, a minimum humidity of 17% and 15 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 27.

FWI at the start 41.5
Minimum humidity 17 %
Days without rain 15
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Ulytauskiy fire, July 2017
15,887 ha 3 days FWI 41.8 Min. humidity 17 % 195 km away, in 2017

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

4 days
median duration
6,628 ha
median area
26 %
went past 10,000 ha
1.7 mm
rain at the end (median; 15 of 27 had it)

It was 3.1 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 5 days, against 4 days.

None of its 27 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. In 12 of 27, 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 1.7 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

5.0 mmfirst rain
13 Jul9 days after it ended
47km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 4 Jul, and on 13 Jul 5.0 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 15 of 27, with a median of 1.7 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 2017
After · 11 Jul 2017

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 · 949Every 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 Kazakhstan

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Zhanaarkinskiy fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 June 2017 and 4 July 2017: 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 20,511 hectares (205.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Zhanaarkinskiy (20,244 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.2 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Kazakhstan (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: 27. Their median duration was 4 days and their median area 6,628 ha; 26 % went past 10,000 ha. None of its 27 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. In 12 of 27, 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 1.7 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. 949 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.