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Bakhmut fire, 7 August 2024 Бахмутський район · Bakhmut

Out · last measured on 9 Aug 2024

The fire started on 7 August 2024 in Bakhmut, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 229 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 352th largest in Donetsk Oblast since 2016 (of 1004 with a page). Number 808 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
229ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
7 Aug 2024 – 9 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
7 Aug
2024
Danger at start
14
Moderate · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

29°high
37km/h · peak gust
33%lowest humidity

It had gone one day 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.

What happened to each town

  1. Bakhmut Бахмутський район 108,637 inhabitants · 3.5 km from the town where it started
    230 ha
    0.1 %

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 areas64 %
  • Mixed forest32 %
  • Other natural land3.9 %

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)
7 Aug 28.3 °C 38 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
8 Aug 28.7 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
9 Aug 29.3 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
10 Aug after 30.3 °C 30 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
11 Aug after 31.1 °C 32 % 46 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
12 Aug after 26.2 °C 26 % 52 km/h 0.5 mm High 38
13 Aug after 24.3 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Aug after 25.6 °C 32 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Aug after 26.1 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
16 Aug after 28.0 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
17 Aug after 28.6 °C 23 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
18 Aug after 31.5 °C 20 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Aug after 33.3 °C 14 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Jul 2024
After · 16 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 7 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 10 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak10 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1011 µg/m³
Optical depth0.68
56789101112
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 7 August 2024 and 9 August 2024: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 229 hectares (2.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bakhmut (230 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 3.5 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 29.3 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, 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.