How long did the Chernihiv fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 14 April 2025 and 16 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 509 hectares (5.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Chernihiv (509 ha, 0.2 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 32.3 km of Chernihiv. 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 18.4 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 8, class 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 · 2025-04-14 → 2025-04-16

Chernihiv fire, 14 April 2025 Чернігів · Chernihiv

Out · last detection 16 Apr 2025, 00:15 UTC

The fire started on 14 April 2025 in Chernihiv, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 509 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 30th largest in Chernihiv Oblast since 2016 (of 156 with a page). Number 170 in Ukraine in 2025, of 1359.

The power measured by the satellite is low (7.2 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: 509ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 3days; 14 Apr 2025 – 16 Apr 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 14 Apr; 2025
Heat detections: 15; in a single hotspot: 7 MW
Danger at start: 1; Very low · FWI index
Energy released: 45MW; sum of detected power

Play back 16 Apr 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Apr16 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

141516

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

The weather it burned in

18°high

44km/h · peak gust

24%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 24 Apr.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

Chernihiv Чернігів 286,899 inhabitants · 32.3 km from the town where it started

509 ha reached on 13 Apr

0.2 %

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 land66 %
Mixed forest33 %
Agricultural areas0.6 %

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)
13 Apr	14.3 °C	42 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 1
14 Apr	18.4 °C	30 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 5
15 Apr	17.9 °C	24 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 8
16 Apr	17.7 °C	40 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 8
17 Apr after	22.8 °C	35 %	47 km/h	0.1 mm	Low 10
18 Apr after	24.0 °C	25 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 11
19 Apr after	24.5 °C	21 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
20 Apr after	25.5 °C	18 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
21 Apr after	26.0 °C	25 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
22 Apr after	25.5 °C	23 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
23 Apr after	27.1 °C	21 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
24 Apr after	27.2 °C	24 %	26 km/h	1.2 mm	Moderate 12

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 7 Apr 2025

After · 23 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 18 April 2025 the air beside the fire reached 14 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak14 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1018 µg/m³

Optical depth0.41

1213141516171819

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 · 15Every 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 Chernihiv fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 14 April 2025 and 16 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 509 hectares (5.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Chernihiv (509 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 32.3 km of Chernihiv. 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 18.4 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 8, class 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?

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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