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Bilmak fire, March 2026 Більмацький район · Bilmak

Out · last measured on 10 Mar 2026

The fire started on 10 March 2026 in Bilmak, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 114 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 415th largest in Zaporizhzhia Oblast since 2016 (of 490 with a page). Number 853 in Ukraine in 2026, of 984.

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but not yet its hotspots: NASA publishes the yearly hotspot archive only once the year closes. The page picks it up automatically when it is available.

Burnt area
114ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
10 Mar 2026 – 10 Mar 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
10 Mar
2026
Danger at start
2
Very low · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

14°high
20km/h · peak gust
35%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.6 mm on 17 Mar.

This area had burned before

68% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 77 ha in 2024.

What happened to each town

  1. Bilmak Більмацький район 21,359 inhabitants · 14.8 km from the town where it started
    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 land51 %
  • Agricultural areas25 %
  • Mixed forest23 %

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 Mar 13.9 °C 35 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
11 Mar after 15.0 °C 30 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
12 Mar after 15.2 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
13 Mar after 12.7 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
14 Mar after 11.5 °C 25 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
15 Mar after 12.0 °C 38 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
16 Mar after 11.1 °C 44 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm Low 7
17 Mar after 8.1 °C 74 % 27 km/h 4.6 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Mar 2026
After · 17 Mar 2026

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 11 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 103 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 29: 1.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak103 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM10115 µg/m³
Optical depth0.23
8910111213
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 March 2026 and 10 March 2026: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 114 hectares (1.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bilmak (113 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 14.8 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 13.9 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 20 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 2, 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

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
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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.