How long did the Borova fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 23 May 2024 and 25 May 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 622 hectares (6.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Borova (622 ha, 0.6 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 10.3 km of Borova. 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 28.0 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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.

UA · Ukraine · 2024-05-23 → 2024-05-25

Borova fire, 23 May 2024 Борівський район · Borova

Out · last detection 26 May 2024, 09:56 UTC

The fire started on 23 May 2024 in Borova, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 622 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 36th largest in Kharkiv Oblast since 2016 (of 558 with a page). Number 237 in Ukraine in 2024, of 2092.

Burnt area: 622ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 3days; 23 May 2024 – 25 May 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 23 May; 2024
Heat detections: 27; in a single hotspot: 42 MW
Danger at start: 19; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 316MW; sum of detected power

Play back 26 May 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 May25 May

How it evolved, day by day

23242526

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

The weather it burned in

28°high

50km/h · peak gust

19%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.8 mm on 31 May.

This area had burned before

29% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 179 ha in 2022.

139 ha Borova fire, July 2022 178 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Borova Борівський район 10.3 km from the town where it started

622 ha reached on 20 May

0.6 %

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

Coniferous forest44 %
Other land cover24 %
Mixed forest22 %
Other natural land10 %

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)
20 May	24.9 °C	26 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
21 May	26.4 °C	22 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
22 May	27.2 °C	26 %	19 km/h	0.3 mm	High 23
23 May	28.0 °C	27 %	37 km/h	1.9 mm	High 22
24 May	23.7 °C	19 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
25 May	23.2 °C	19 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
26 May after	23.4 °C	23 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
27 May after	27.4 °C	21 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
28 May after	28.2 °C	22 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
29 May after	27.5 °C	22 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
30 May after	25.9 °C	44 %	27 km/h	0.3 mm	High 24
31 May after	23.8 °C	61 %	30 km/h	6.8 mm	Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 16 May 2024

After · 1 Jun 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 29 May 2024 the air beside the fire reached 17 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak17 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1045 µg/m³

Optical depth0.56

WHO 15

181920212223242526272829

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 · 27Every 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 Borova fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 23 May 2024 and 25 May 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 622 hectares (6.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Borova (622 ha, 0.6 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 10.3 km of Borova. 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 28.0 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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

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