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Zhigansky Ulus fire, 17 August 2020 Zhigansky Ulus

Out · last detection 29 Aug 2020, 03:27 UTC

The fire started on 17 August 2020 in Zhigansky Ulus, Russia, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,543 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1233th largest in Sakha Republic since 2016 (of 1422 with a page). Number 483 in Russia in 2020, of 594.

Burnt area
3,543ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
17 Aug 2020 – 29 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
17 Aug
2020
Heat detections
537
in a single hotspot: 347 MW
Danger at start
3
Very low · FWI index
Energy released
10.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Aug29 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

17181920212223242526272829

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

The weather it burned in

21°high
61km/h · peak gust
31%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 9.1 mm on 3 Sept.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Zhigansky Ulus where it started
    3,419 ha reached on 17 Aug
    0.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

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 Aug 14.1 °C 54 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
12 Aug 16.0 °C 50 % 36 km/h 4.4 mm Very low 1
13 Aug 10.0 °C 57 % 61 km/h 0.2 mm Very low 5
14 Aug 11.5 °C 55 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Low 5
15 Aug 10.3 °C 60 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
16 Aug 15.1 °C 38 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
17 Aug 18.2 °C 34 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
18 Aug 20.9 °C 31 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
19 Aug 14.7 °C 51 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
20 Aug 15.7 °C 41 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
21 Aug 16.2 °C 40 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
22 Aug 13.9 °C 40 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
23 Aug 13.8 °C 44 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
24 Aug 13.4 °C 43 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
25 Aug 15.6 °C 33 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
26 Aug 15.9 °C 31 % 12 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
27 Aug 19.5 °C 33 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
28 Aug 20.8 °C 34 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
29 Aug 19.3 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
30 Aug after 16.2 °C 53 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
31 Aug after 14.6 °C 58 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
1 Sept after 12.7 °C 64 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
2 Sept after 13.3 °C 67 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
3 Sept after 12.5 °C 92 % 37 km/h 9.1 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 10 Aug 2020
After · 5 Sept 2020

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 · 537Every 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 Zhigansky Ulus fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 August 2020 and 29 August 2020: 13 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 3,543 hectares (35.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Zhigansky Ulus (3,419 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 20.9 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 61 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 18, 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.

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

Satellite cross-check

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.

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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.

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.