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Bakhmut fire, 13 August 2026 Бахмутський район · Bakhmut, Popasna

Out · last measured on 13 Aug 2026

The fire started on 13 August 2026 in Bakhmut, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 419 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 147th largest in Donetsk Oblast since 2016 (of 1004 with a page). Number 181 in Ukraine in 2026, of 984.

Burnt area
419ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
13 Aug 2026 – 13 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
13 Aug
2026
Heat detections
9
in a single hotspot: 35 MW
Danger at start
21
Moderate · FWI index

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Aug13 Aug

The weather it burned in

24°high
38km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

25% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 105 ha in 2025.

What happened to each town

  1. Bakhmut Бахмутський район 108,637 inhabitants · 9.4 km from the town where it started
    378 ha reached on 15 Aug
    0.2 %
  2. Popasna Попаснянський район 40,204 inhabitants · 20.4 km from the town
    42 ha
    0.0 %

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 areas91 %
  • Other natural land6.6 %
  • Mixed forest2.1 %

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)
13 Aug 23.5 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
14 Aug after 22.2 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
15 Aug after 23.5 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
16 Aug after 27.4 °C 34 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
17 Aug after 30.0 °C 30 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
18 Aug after 31.9 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
19 Aug after 28.0 °C 44 % 44 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 21
20 Aug after 26.5 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 20
21 Aug after 32.0 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
22 Aug after 34.3 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
23 Aug after 34.5 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Aug 2026
After · 20 Aug 2026

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 12 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 15 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak15 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1018 µg/m³
Optical depth0.49
111213141516
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)

Detections table · 9Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Ukraine ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Bakhmut fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 13 August 2026 and 13 August 2026: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 419 hectares (4.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bakhmut (378 ha, 0.2 %); Popasna (42 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 9.4 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 23.5 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 21, class Moderate.
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.