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Bakhmut fire, 15 August 2025 Бахмутський район · Bakhmut

Out · last measured on 15 Aug 2025

The fire started on 15 August 2025 in Bakhmut, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 123 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 768th largest in Donetsk Oblast since 2016 (of 1004 with a page). Number 1090 in Ukraine in 2025, of 1359.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Bakhmut · 2023Bakhmut · 2024Bakhmut · 2025Bakhmut · 2022

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
123ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
15 Aug 2025 – 15 Aug 2025
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
15 Aug
2025
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

25°high
38km/h · peak gust
31%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.7 mm on 25 Aug.

This area had burned before

49% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 52 ha in 2023, 24 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 60 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Bakhmut Бахмутський район 108,637 inhabitants · 48.3 km from the centre where it started
    122 ha
    0.1 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

  • Agricultural areas54 %
  • Other natural land35 %
  • Mixed forest10 %
  • Artificial surfaces0.8 %

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)
15 Aug 24.9 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
16 Aug after 27.7 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
17 Aug after 32.2 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
18 Aug after 31.2 °C 20 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Aug after 26.5 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Aug after 29.5 °C 23 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
21 Aug after 29.5 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Aug after 32.6 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Aug after 29.8 °C 29 % 45 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 42
24 Aug after 23.3 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
25 Aug after 20.3 °C 39 % 48 km/h 3.7 mm Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Aug 2025
After · 22 Aug 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 18 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 79 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 23: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak79 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1097 µg/m³
Optical depth0.36
131415161718
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 15 August 2025 and 15 August 2025: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 123 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bakhmut (122 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Bakhmut and came within 48.3 km of its centre. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 24.9 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 38 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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
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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.

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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.