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Bakhmut fire, 17 July 2025 Бахмутський район · Bakhmut

Out · last measured on 19 Jul 2025

The fire started on 17 July 2025 in Bakhmut, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 310 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 234th largest in Donetsk Oblast since 2016 (of 1004 with a page). Number 375 in Ukraine in 2025, of 1359.

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
310ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
17 Jul 2025 – 19 Jul 2025
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
17 Jul
2025
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

34°high
50km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.2 mm on 23 Jul.

This area had burned before

12% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6 ha in 2023, 31 ha in 2024.

What happened to each town

  1. Bakhmut Бахмутський район 108,637 inhabitants · 40.6 km from the town where it started
    309 ha
    0.2 %

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 areas75 %
  • Other natural land22 %
  • Mixed forest2.3 %
  • Artificial surfaces1.0 %

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)
17 Jul 32.3 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.3 mm High 29
18 Jul 34.1 °C 31 % 31 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 20
19 Jul 32.4 °C 41 % 50 km/h 4.8 mm Low 6
20 Jul after 29.6 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
21 Jul after 30.8 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Jul after 33.0 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.3 mm High 31
23 Jul after 32.2 °C 39 % 41 km/h 3.2 mm Moderate 12

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Jul 2025
After · 26 Jul 2025

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 19 July 2025 the air beside the fire reached 30 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak30 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1032 µg/m³
Optical depth0.46
1516171819202122
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 17 July 2025 and 19 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 310 hectares (3.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bakhmut (309 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 40.6 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 34.1 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, 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.