Bakhmut fire, 22 July 2025 Бахмутський район · Bakhmut, Kostiantynivka
The fire started on 22 July 2025 in Bakhmut, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 268 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 285th largest in Donetsk Oblast since 2016 (of 1004 with a page). Number 449 in Ukraine in 2025, of 1359.
Compare with…
We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but not yet its hotspots: NASA publishes the yearly hotspot archive only once the year closes. The page picks it up automatically when it is available.
- Burnt area
- 268ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 3days
- 22 Jul 2025 – 24 Jul 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 22 Jul
- 2025
- Danger at start
- 30
- High · FWI index
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.0 mm on 3 Aug.
This area had burned before
54% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 145 ha in 2024.
What happened to each town
-
138 ha0.1 %
-
131 ha0.1 %
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 land71 %
- Agricultural areas14 %
- Mixed forest14 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 Jul | 32.8 °C | 26 % | 37 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 30 |
| 23 Jul | 31.9 °C | 40 % | 41 km/h | 2.6 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 24 Jul | 29.1 °C | 34 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 25 Jul after | 31.2 °C | 29 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 26 Jul after | 33.7 °C | 26 % | 29 km/h | 0.7 mm | High 27 |
| 27 Jul after | 31.1 °C | 34 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 28 Jul after | 32.1 °C | 18 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 29 Jul after | 34.1 °C | 17 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 30 Jul after | 36.9 °C | 16 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 31 Jul after | 29.1 °C | 34 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 1 Aug after | 26.5 °C | 44 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 2 Aug after | 30.1 °C | 29 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 3 Aug after | 24.3 °C | 58 % | 36 km/h | 8.0 mm | Very low 4 |
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 22 July 2025 the air beside the fire reached 14 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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)
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Bakhmut fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 22 July 2025 and 24 July 2025: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 268 hectares (2.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bakhmut (138 ha, 0.1 %); Kostiantynivka (131 ha, 0.1 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 17.6 km of Kostiantynivka. 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 32.8 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- 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.
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.