Chaplynka fire, 22 August 2023 Чаплинський район · Chaplynka
The fire started on 22 August 2023 in Chaplynka, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 339 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 337th largest in Kherson Oblast since 2016 (of 1103 with a page). Number 123 in Ukraine in 2023, of 491.
The power measured by the satellite is low (13.7 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
- 339ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 22 Aug 2023 – 22 Aug 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 22 Aug
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 3
- in a single hotspot: 14 MW
- Danger at start
- 26
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 34MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
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
It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 1 Sept.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
340 ha reached on 22 Aug0.2 %
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 land70 %
- Agricultural areas30 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 Aug | 33.5 °C | 38 % | 34 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 26 |
| 23 Aug after | 30.3 °C | 33 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 24 Aug after | 30.1 °C | 33 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 25 Aug after | 30.0 °C | 35 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 26 Aug after | 31.2 °C | 30 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 27 Aug after | 32.8 °C | 32 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 28 Aug after | 34.7 °C | 36 % | 30 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 28 |
| 29 Aug after | 33.7 °C | 38 % | 36 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 31 |
| 30 Aug after | 29.8 °C | 26 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 31 Aug after | 32.1 °C | 45 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 1 Sept after | 29.9 °C | 45 % | 30 km/h | 1.4 mm | Moderate 14 |
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 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 19 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
- 1,789 haChaplynka Чаплинський район1 September 2023 · 1 day · 12 km away
- 2,967 haChaplynka Чаплинський районJune 2026 · 1 day · 13 km away
- 1,796 haKakhovka Каховський район13 August 2025 · 2 days · 19 km away
- 1,405 haOleshky Олешківський район10 September 2023 · 4 days · 37 km away
- 2,396 haNyzhni Sirohozy Нижньосірогозький районAugust 2026 · 8 days · 38 km away
- 2,403 haKakhovka Каховський район17 June 2026 · 1 day · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Chaplynka fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 22 August 2023 and 22 August 2023: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 339 hectares (3.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Chaplynka (340 ha, 0.2 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 17.1 km of Chaplynka. 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 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 38 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, 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
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
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.