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Bakhmut fire, 2 August 2024 Бахмутський район · Bakhmut, Popasna

Out · last measured on 3 Aug 2024

The fire started on 2 August 2024 in Bakhmut, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 177 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 497th largest in Donetsk Oblast since 2016 (of 1004 with a page). Number 1113 in Ukraine in 2024, of 2092.

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
177ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
2 Aug 2024 – 3 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
2 Aug
2024
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

31°high
34km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.4 mm on 4 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Bakhmut Бахмутський район 108,637 inhabitants · 15.2 km from the town where it started
    161 ha
    0.1 %
  2. Popasna Попаснянський район 40,204 inhabitants · 15.7 km from the town
    16 ha
    0.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official 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.

What burned

  • Agricultural areas49 %
  • Mixed forest29 %
  • Other natural land22 %
  • Artificial surfaces0.6 %

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)
2 Aug 29.0 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
3 Aug 30.8 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
4 Aug after 29.5 °C 44 % 35 km/h 5.4 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Jul 2024
After · 10 Aug 2024

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 2 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 11 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak11 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1016 µg/m³
Optical depth0.70
31123456
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 Bakhmut fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 2 August 2024 and 3 August 2024: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 177 hectares (1.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bakhmut (161 ha, 0.1 %); Popasna (16 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 15.2 km of Bakhmut. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.8 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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

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.

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 101 · 112.

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.