Bakhmut fire, 5 October 2024 Бахмутський район · Perevalsk, Bakhmut, Popasna
The fire started on 5 October 2024 in Bakhmut, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,237 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 9th largest in Donetsk Oblast since 2016 (of 1004 with a page). Number 34 in Ukraine in 2024, of 2092.
The power measured by the satellite is low (20.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 2,237ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 5 Oct 2024 – 6 Oct 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- districts
- Started on
- 5 Oct
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 52
- in a single hotspot: 20 MW
- Danger at start
- 38
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 269MW
- sum of detected power
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 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 13 Oct.
This area had burned before
53% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 472 ha in 2022, 879 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,195 ha that had burned before.
- 595 ha Perevalsk fire, September 2023 815 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 388 ha Bakhmut fire, June 2022 2,104 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 155 ha Bakhmut fire, October 2023 294 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 121 ha Perevalsk fire, September 2023 167 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 85 ha Popasna fire, July 2022 517 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 9 ha Bakhmut fire, September 2023 425 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
1,845 ha reached on 5 Oct2.4 %
-
265 ha reached on 5 Oct0.2 %
-
124 ha reached on 6 Oct0.1 %
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
- Other natural land87 %
- Agricultural areas8.9 %
- Mixed forest3.6 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 Oct | 25.0 °C | 24 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 6 Oct | 26.8 °C | 22 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 7 Oct after | 25.8 °C | 28 % | 36 km/h | 0.4 mm | Very high 40 |
| 8 Oct after | 15.1 °C | 54 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 9 Oct after | 17.9 °C | 49 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 10 Oct after | 20.9 °C | 43 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 11 Oct after | 22.4 °C | 32 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 12 Oct after | 17.0 °C | 47 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 13 Oct after | 13.3 °C | 49 % | 57 km/h | 1.1 mm | Moderate 18 |
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 3 October 2024 the air beside the fire reached 96 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 51: 3.4 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 · 52Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 2,104 haBakhmut Бахмутський районJune 2022 · 6 days · 7 km away
- 1,705 haBakhmut Бахмутський район28 July 2025 · 4 days · 10 km away
- 4,817 haPerevalsk Перевальський район4 July 2025 · 8 days · 11 km away
- 2,982 haPerevalsk Перевальський район28 March 2024 · 2 days · 11 km away
- 6,751 haPopasna Попаснянський район16 September 2024 · 4 days · 18 km away
- 3,012 haAntratsyt Антрацитівський район16 September 2024 · 3 days · 19 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Bakhmut fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 5 October 2024 and 6 October 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 2,237 hectares (22.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Perevalsk (1,845 ha, 2.4 %); Bakhmut (265 ha, 0.2 %); Popasna (124 ha, 0.1 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 24.3 km of Popasna. 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 26.8 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, class Very 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
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.