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Bilmak fire, July 2024 Більмацький район · Bilmak, Polohy

Out · last measured on 12 Jul 2024

The fire started on 10 July 2024 in Bilmak, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 505 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 45th largest in Zaporizhzhia Oblast since 2016 (of 490 with a page). Number 317 in Ukraine in 2024, of 2092.

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
505ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
10 Jul 2024 – 12 Jul 2024
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
10 Jul
2024
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

35°high
40km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 22 Jul.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Bilmak Більмацький район 21,359 inhabitants · 16.3 km from the town where it started
    393 ha
    0.3 %
  2. Polohy Пологівський район 39,115 inhabitants · 19.5 km from the town
    113 ha
    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 land61 %
  • Agricultural areas35 %
  • Mixed forest3.8 %

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)
10 Jul 34.2 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Jul 34.6 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Jul 33.6 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Jul after 32.1 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Jul after 34.5 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Jul after 36.4 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Jul after 36.2 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Jul after 37.5 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.1 mm High 37
18 Jul after 36.6 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Jul after 34.9 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Jul after 32.1 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
21 Jul after 33.3 °C 29 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
22 Jul after 30.0 °C 42 % 32 km/h 1.9 mm Moderate 14

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Jul 2024
After · 19 Jul 2024

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 9 July 2024 the air beside the fire reached 19 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak19 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1023 µg/m³
Optical depth0.41
89101112131415
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Ukraine ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Bilmak fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 10 July 2024 and 12 July 2024: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 505 hectares (5.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bilmak (393 ha, 0.3 %); Polohy (113 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 16.3 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 34.6 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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

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.