Bakhmut fire, 21 September 2023 Бахмутський район · Bakhmut, Shakhtarsk
The fire started on 21 September 2023 in Bakhmut, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 470 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 123th largest in Donetsk Oblast since 2016 (of 1004 with a page). Number 79 in Ukraine in 2023, of 491.
The power measured by the satellite is low (15.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
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- Burnt area
- 470ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 21 Sept 2023 – 24 Sept 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 21 Sept
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 12
- in a single hotspot: 15 MW
- Danger at start
- 22
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 31MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 2 Oct.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
394 ha reached on 21 Sept0.2 %
-
74 ha0.0 %
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
- Agricultural areas81 %
- Other natural land14 %
- Mixed forest4.9 %
Land cover inside the perimeter as reported by Copernicus EFFIS (outside the Corine Land Cover area).
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 Sept | 24.4 °C | 43 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 22 Sept | 25.2 °C | 37 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 23 Sept | 25.7 °C | 30 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 24 Sept | 26.7 °C | 26 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 25 Sept after | 25.8 °C | 30 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 26 Sept after | 26.9 °C | 26 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 27 Sept after | 26.4 °C | 23 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 28 Sept after | 26.6 °C | 29 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 29 Sept after | 25.9 °C | 30 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 30 Sept after | 25.6 °C | 27 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 1 Oct after | 24.9 °C | 31 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 2 Oct after | 21.6 °C | 45 % | 38 km/h | 1.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 25 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 12Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,705 haBakhmut Бахмутський район28 July 2025 · 4 days · 4 km away
- 2,104 haBakhmut Бахмутський районJune 2022 · 9 days · 9 km away
- 2,237 haBakhmut Бахмутський район5 October 2024 · 2 days · 13 km away
- 4,817 haPerevalsk Перевальський район4 July 2025 · 8 days · 18 km away
- 2,982 haPerevalsk Перевальський район28 March 2024 · 2 days · 20 km away
- 6,751 haPopasna Попаснянський район15 September 2024 · 5 days · 22 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Bakhmut fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 21 September 2023 and 24 September 2023: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 470 hectares (4.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bakhmut (394 ha, 0.2 %); Shakhtarsk (74 ha, 0.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 39.7 km of the centre of Shakhtarsk, the closest of the areas it touched. 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 26.7 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, class High.
- 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 ›
Satellite cross-check
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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 12 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.
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.