How long did the Bakhmach fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 21 October 2024 and 21 October 2024: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 935 hectares (9.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Bakhmach (937 ha, 0.6 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire started in Bakhmach and came within 23.5 km of its centre. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 13.9 °C, humidity dropped to 56 % and gusts hit 24 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 1, class Very low.

Where does this data come from?

From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Ukraine (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

UA · Ukraine · 2024-10-21 → 2024-10-21

Bakhmach fire, October 2024 Бахмацький район · Bakhmach

Out · last measured on 21 Oct 2024

The fire started on 21 October 2024 in Bakhmach, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 935 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 11th largest in Chernihiv Oblast since 2016 (of 156 with a page). Number 131 in Ukraine in 2024, of 2093.

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We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area: 935ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 1day; 21 Oct 2024 – 21 Oct 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 21 Oct; 2024
Danger at start: 1; Very low · FWI index

The weather it burned in

14°high

24km/h · peak gust

56%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 0.6% of the area of London (9.4 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

Bakhmach Бахмацький район 23.5 km from the centre where it started

937 ha

0.6 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official 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.

What burned

Other natural land60 %
Mixed forest27 %
Agricultural areas12 %

Land cover inside the perimeter as reported by Copernicus EFFIS (outside the Corine Land Cover area).

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)
21 Oct	13.9 °C	56 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 1
22 Oct after	14.9 °C	52 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 2
23 Oct after	13.5 °C	57 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 4
24 Oct after	10.2 °C	64 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 4
25 Oct after	11.7 °C	72 %	42 km/h	0.1 mm	Very low 3
26 Oct after	10.9 °C	75 %	18 km/h	0.5 mm	Very low 1
27 Oct after	12.6 °C	65 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 2
28 Oct after	11.6 °C	75 %	21 km/h	0.3 mm	Very low 2
29 Oct after	10.8 °C	59 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 2
30 Oct after	9.8 °C	71 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 3
31 Oct after	11.8 °C	66 %	58 km/h	0.6 mm	Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 14 Oct 2024

After · 28 Oct 2024

Before After

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 23 October 2024 the air beside the fire reached 16 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak16 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1016 µg/m³

Optical depth0.29

WHO 15

192021222324

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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Ukraine ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Bakhmach fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 21 October 2024 and 21 October 2024: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 935 hectares (9.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Bakhmach (937 ha, 0.6 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire started in Bakhmach and came within 23.5 km of its centre. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 13.9 °C, humidity dropped to 56 % and gusts hit 24 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 1, class Very low.
Where does this data come from?: From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Ukraine (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: 101 · 112 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

ДСНС · State Emergency Service ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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 101 · 112.

How we know this

Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

Where this data comes from

The perimeter and land cover come from the Copernicus European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), measured on MODIS and Sentinel-2 imagery and published under CC BY 4.0. 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 (Public Domain). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ slightly from each country’s official figure.

Where it burned