Bakhmut fire, 1 September 2026 Бахмутський район · Bakhmut
The fire started on 1 September 2026 in Bakhmut, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 195 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 439th largest in Donetsk Oblast since 2016 (of 1004 with a page). Number 462 in Ukraine in 2026, of 984.
The power measured by the satellite is low (20.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 195ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 11days
- 1 Sept 2026 – 11 Sept 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 1 Sept
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 5
- in a single hotspot: 20 MW
- Danger at start
- 28
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 60MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.3 mm on 6 Sept.
This area had burned before
87% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4 ha in 2022, 167 ha in 2024, 30 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 170 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
196 ha reached on 3 Sept0.1 %
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 land58 %
- Agricultural areas26 %
- Mixed forest16 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Sept | 27.9 °C | 18 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 2 Sept | 29.6 °C | 21 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 3 Sept | 27.0 °C | 35 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 4 Sept | 27.1 °C | 30 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 5 Sept | 28.8 °C | 32 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 6 Sept | 23.0 °C | 38 % | 40 km/h | 4.3 mm | Low 6 |
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 2 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 17 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)
Detections table · 5Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Bakhmut fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 1 September 2026 to 11 September 2026 (11 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 September 2026 to 1 September 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 195 hectares (2.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Bakhmut (196 ha, 0.1 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 13.8 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 27.9 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 21 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, 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
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.