Bilozerka fire, May 2024 Білозерський район · Bilozerka, Oleshky
The fire started on 23 May 2024 in Bilozerka, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 169 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 695th largest in Kherson Oblast since 2016 (of 1103 with a page). Number 1183 in Ukraine in 2024, of 2092.
The power measured by the satellite is low (14.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
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- Burnt area
- 169ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 23 May 2024 – 24 May 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 23 May
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 3
- in a single hotspot: 14 MW
- Danger at start
- 30
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 34MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
23 May 2024 · 34 MW · 3
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 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 14.0 mm on 29 May.
This area had burned before
5% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 9 ha in 2023.
What happened to each town
-
121 ha reached on 23 May0.1 %
-
48 ha0.0 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
What burned
- Agricultural areas56 %
- Coniferous forest19 %
- Mixed forest13 %
- Other natural land12 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 May | 28.6 °C | 23 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 24 May | 28.0 °C | 27 % | 54 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 32 |
| 25 May after | 25.3 °C | 23 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 26 May after | 20.8 °C | 29 % | 51 km/h | 0.7 mm | High 26 |
| 27 May after | 23.3 °C | 39 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 28 May after | 26.3 °C | 34 % | 45 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 26 |
| 29 May after | 21.7 °C | 66 % | 29 km/h | 14.0 mm | Very low 0 |
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 21 May 2024 the air beside the fire reached 11 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 · 3Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 3,116 haBilozerka Білозерський район20 June 2026 · 19 days · 8 km away
- 3,175 haBilozerka Білозерський район1 June 2025 · 12 days · 12 km away
- 3,517 haOleshky Олешківський район24 June 2025 · 7 days · 21 km away
- 2,823 haOleshky Олешківський район6 June 2025 · 4 days · 27 km away
- 3,781 haHolo Prystan Скадовський район1 July 2024 · 9 days · 30 km away
- 5,107 haHolo Prystan Скадовський район10 August 2026 · 9 days · 31 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Bilozerka fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 May 2024 to 24 May 2024 (2 days). The perimeter dates it from 23 May 2024 to 23 May 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 169 hectares (1.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bilozerka (121 ha, 0.1 %); Oleshky (48 ha, 0.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 18.6 km of the centre of Oleshky, the closest of the areas it touched. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 28.6 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 23 May 2024 to 23 May 2024. 3 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.