How long did the Bakhmut fire last?

The official perimeter only gives the start date (15 August 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 4 September 2026 (21 days from 15 August 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 444 hectares (4.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Bakhmut (445 ha, 0.3 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire started in Bakhmut and came within 9.8 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 34.4 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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.

UA · Ukraine · 2026-08-15 → 2026-09-04

Bakhmut fire, 15 August 2026 Бахмутський район · Bakhmut

Out · last detection 4 Sept 2026, 10:26 UTC

The fire started on 15 August 2026 in Bakhmut, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 444 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 136th largest in Donetsk Oblast since 2016 (of 1004 with a page). Number 166 in Ukraine in 2026, of 984.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Bakhmut · 2024 Bakhmut · 2025 Popasna · 2025 Lyman · 2024

Burnt area: 444ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: ≈ 21days; 15 Aug 2026 – 4 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 15 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 10; in a single hotspot: 102 MW
Danger at start: 20; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 157MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Aug4 Sept

Play back 4 Sept 2026

How it evolved, day by day

15 Aug 17 Aug 4 Sept

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

34°high

50km/h · peak gust

16%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.5 mm on 6 Sept.

This area had burned before

52% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 15 ha in 2023, 153 ha in 2024, 154 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 232 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Bakhmut Бахмутський район 108,637 inhabitants · 9.8 km from the centre where it started

445 ha reached on 15 Aug

0.3 %

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

Other natural land62 %
Agricultural areas38 %

Land cover inside the perimeter as reported by Copernicus EFFIS (outside the Corine Land Cover area).

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025

Built-up area0.31 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.31 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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	23.5 °C	32 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
16 Aug	28.7 °C	25 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
17 Aug	30.4 °C	27 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
18 Aug	32.3 °C	19 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
19 Aug	27.6 °C	42 %	34 km/h	1.3 mm	Moderate 16
20 Aug	27.2 °C	32 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
21 Aug	32.0 °C	25 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
22 Aug	34.3 °C	23 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
23 Aug	34.4 °C	17 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
24 Aug	26.8 °C	27 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
25 Aug	26.3 °C	27 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
26 Aug	27.3 °C	29 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
27 Aug	19.8 °C	66 %	30 km/h	0.9 mm	Moderate 13
28 Aug	23.8 °C	48 %	50 km/h	0.4 mm	High 23
29 Aug	28.2 °C	31 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
30 Aug	27.5 °C	26 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
31 Aug	27.4 °C	16 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
1 Sept	28.9 °C	16 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
2 Sept	29.7 °C	19 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
3 Sept	26.8 °C	34 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
4 Sept	28.0 °C	30 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
5 Sept after	30.0 °C	23 %	54 km/h	0.7 mm	Very high 43
6 Sept after	22.6 °C	37 %	32 km/h	6.5 mm	Low 5

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 8 Aug 2026

After · 11 Sept 2026

Before After

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 17 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 21 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak21 µg/m³

Days over the guideline1 day

PM1032 µg/m³

Optical depth0.33

WHO 15

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)

Detections table · 10Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Ukraine ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Bakhmut fire last?: The official perimeter only gives the start date (15 August 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 4 September 2026 (21 days from 15 August 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 444 hectares (4.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Bakhmut (445 ha, 0.3 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire started in Bakhmut and came within 9.8 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 34.4 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

ДСНС · State Emergency Service ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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

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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.

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What really happened?

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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.
The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 10 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.
Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.

Where it burned