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Berdiansk fire, August 2023 Бердянський район · Berdiansk

Out · last measured on 22 Aug 2023

The fire started on 22 August 2023 in Berdiansk, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 159 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 280th largest in Zaporizhzhia Oblast since 2016 (of 490 with a page). Number 297 in Ukraine in 2023, of 491.

Burnt area
159ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
22 Aug 2023 – 22 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
22 Aug
2023
Heat detections
12
in a single hotspot: 15 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Aug22 Aug

The weather it burned in

33°high
36km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 1 Sept.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Berdiansk Бердянський район 24,639 inhabitants · 6.9 km from the town where it started
    159 ha reached on 19 Aug
    0.1 %

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 land67 %
  • Agricultural areas25 %
  • Mixed forest8.2 %

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)
22 Aug 33.2 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Aug after 28.9 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Aug after 28.6 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
25 Aug after 29.2 °C 29 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
26 Aug after 27.7 °C 42 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
27 Aug after 28.9 °C 44 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
28 Aug after 32.6 °C 41 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
29 Aug after 28.6 °C 43 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
30 Aug after 26.2 °C 26 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
31 Aug after 29.2 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
1 Sept after 28.1 °C 49 % 31 km/h 2.1 mm Low 10

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Aug 2023
After · 29 Aug 2023

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 21 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 26 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 15: 1.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak26 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1031 µg/m³
Optical depth0.35
202122232425
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 · 12Every 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 Berdiansk fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 22 August 2023 and 22 August 2023: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 159 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Berdiansk (159 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 6.9 km of Berdiansk. 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 33.2 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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.