How long did the Borova fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 10 April 2025 and 12 April 2025: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 360 hectares (3.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Borova (282 ha, 0.3 %); Kupiansk (78 ha, 0.0 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 13.7 km of Kupiansk. 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 31 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 3, 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.

UA · Ukraine · 2025-04-10 → 2025-04-12

Borova fire, April 2025 Борівський район · Borova, Kupiansk

Out · last detection 10 Apr 2025, 10:15 UTC

The fire started on 10 April 2025 in Borova, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 360 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 86th largest in Kharkiv Oblast since 2016 (of 558 with a page). Number 308 in Ukraine in 2025, of 1359.

The power measured by the satellite is low (12.1 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: 360ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 3days; 10 Apr 2025 – 12 Apr 2025
Municipalities hit: 2; districts
Started on: 10 Apr; 2025
Heat detections: 5; in a single hotspot: 12 MW
Danger at start: 1; Very low · FWI index
Energy released: 52MW; sum of detected power

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Apr12 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

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

The weather it burned in

14°high

47km/h · peak gust

31%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

13% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 47 ha in 2024.

What happened to each town

Borova Борівський район 14.8 km from the town where it started

282 ha reached on 10 Apr

0.3 %
Kupiansk Куп'янський район 137,200 inhabitants · 13.7 km from the town

78 ha

0.0 %

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 land55 %
Mixed forest27 %
Other land cover12 %
Agricultural areas5.7 %

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 Apr	6.8 °C	34 %	47 km/h	1.6 mm	Very low 1
11 Apr	9.9 °C	46 %	36 km/h	0.7 mm	Very low 1
12 Apr	13.9 °C	31 %	24 km/h	0.3 mm	Very low 3
13 Apr after	14.3 °C	38 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 4
14 Apr after	16.9 °C	32 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
15 Apr after	21.7 °C	16 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 11
16 Apr after	22.1 °C	23 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
17 Apr after	23.2 °C	21 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
18 Apr after	24.8 °C	19 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
19 Apr after	25.0 °C	14 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
20 Apr after	25.4 °C	13 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
21 Apr after	24.7 °C	14 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
22 Apr after	25.4 °C	19 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 3 Apr 2025

After · 19 Apr 2025

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 15 April 2025 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

PM1020 µg/m³

Optical depth0.52

WHO 15

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)

Detections table · 5Every 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 10 April 2025 and 12 April 2025: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 360 hectares (3.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Borova (282 ha, 0.3 %); Kupiansk (78 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 13.7 km of Kupiansk. 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 31 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 3, 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

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?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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