How long did the Bilmak fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 28 February 2024 and 29 February 2024: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 184 hectares (1.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Bilmak (185 ha, 0.1 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 26.0 km of Bilmak. 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 9.3 °C, humidity dropped to 38 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 3, class Very low.

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 · 2024-02-28 → 2024-02-29

Bilmak fire, February 2024 Більмацький район · Bilmak

Out · last detection 29 Feb 2024, 10:27 UTC

The fire started on 28 February 2024 in Bilmak, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 184 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 234th largest in Zaporizhzhia Oblast since 2016 (of 490 with a page). Number 1061 in Ukraine in 2024, of 2092.

The power measured by the satellite is low (23.8 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: 184ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 2days; 28 Feb 2024 – 29 Feb 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 28 Feb; 2024
Heat detections: 13; in a single hotspot: 24 MW
Danger at start: 3; Very low · FWI index
Energy released: 154MW; sum of detected power

Play back 29 Feb 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Feb29 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

2829

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

The weather it burned in

9°high

43km/h · peak gust

38%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

Bilmak Більмацький район 21,359 inhabitants · 26.0 km from the town where it started

185 ha reached on 28 Feb

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

Agricultural areas89 %
Other natural land11 %

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	Danger (FWI)
28 Feb	8.3 °C	38 %	43 km/h	Very low 3
29 Feb	9.3 °C	45 %	29 km/h	Very low 2
1 Mar after	8.2 °C	52 %	25 km/h	Very low 2
2 Mar after	3.8 °C	56 %	39 km/h	Very low 3
3 Mar after	6.9 °C	50 %	50 km/h	Very low 4
4 Mar after	8.2 °C	58 %	39 km/h	Very low 3
5 Mar after	7.6 °C	59 %	27 km/h	Very low 2
6 Mar after	4.5 °C	67 %	37 km/h	Very low 2
7 Mar after	5.1 °C	50 %	32 km/h	Very low 2
8 Mar after	3.0 °C	56 %	24 km/h	Very low 1
9 Mar after	7.6 °C	40 %	27 km/h	Very low 2
10 Mar after	8.8 °C	41 %	38 km/h	Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 21 Feb 2024

After · 7 Mar 2024

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 1 March 2024 the air beside the fire reached 35 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak35 µg/m³

Days over the guideline1 day

PM1046 µg/m³

Optical depth0.62

WHO 15

26272829123

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 · 13Every 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 Bilmak fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 28 February 2024 and 29 February 2024: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 184 hectares (1.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Bilmak (185 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 26.0 km of Bilmak. 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 9.3 °C, humidity dropped to 38 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 3, class Very low.
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

ДСНС · State Emergency Service ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

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.

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