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Boikivske fire, September 2022 Кальміуський район · Boikivske

Out · last detection 8 Sept 2022, 10:33 UTC

The fire started on 7 September 2022 in Boikivske, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 342 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 206th largest in Donetsk Oblast since 2016 (of 1004 with a page). Number 131 in Ukraine in 2022, of 531.

The power measured by the satellite is low (23.1 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
342ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
7 Sept 2022 – 8 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
7 Sept
2022
Heat detections
7
in a single hotspot: 23 MW
Danger at start
23
High · FWI index
Average daily power
40MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Sept8 Sept
8 Sept 2022

How it evolved, day by day

7 Sept 2022 · 64 MW · 5 8 Sept 2022 · 15 MW · 2
7 Sept 8 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

21°high
28km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.1 mm on 12 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. Boikivske Кальміуський район 122,600 inhabitants · 5.6 km from the centre where it started
    342 ha reached on 7 Sept
    0.3 %

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

  • Other natural land83 %
  • Agricultural areas13 %
  • 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)
7 Sept 18.0 °C 36 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
8 Sept 21.4 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
9 Sept after 21.8 °C 41 % 32 km/h 0.3 mm High 26
10 Sept after 20.9 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Sept after 21.8 °C 38 % 54 km/h 0.5 mm Extreme 52
12 Sept after 20.1 °C 54 % 31 km/h 7.1 mm Very low 5

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 22.8, a minimum humidity of 36% and 2 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 62.

FWI at the start 22.8
Minimum humidity 36 %
Days without rain 2
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Marinka fire, August 2026
220 ha 33 days FWI 21.3 Min. humidity 36 % 54 km away, in 2026

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 5.6 mm on 6 Sept.

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
172 ha
median area
0 %
went past 1,000 ha
3.0 mm
rain at the end (median; 49 of 62 had it)

It was 2.0 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 2 days, against 2 days.

Only 6 of its 62 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 13 of 62, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.0 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

7.1 mmfirst rain
12 Sept4 days after it ended
28km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 8 Sept, and on 12 Sept 7.1 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 49 of 62, with a median of 3.0 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Aug 2022
After · 15 Sept 2022

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 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 25 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak25 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1028 µg/m³
Optical depth0.22
5 Sept7 Sept9 Sept11 Sept
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 · 7Every 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 Boikivske fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 7 September 2022 and 8 September 2022: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 342 hectares (3.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Boikivske (342 ha, 0.3 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Boikivske and came within 5.6 km of its centre. 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 21.4 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 28 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 62. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 172 ha; 0 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 6 of its 62 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 13 of 62, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.0 mm.

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.

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 7 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.