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UA · Ukraine ·

Chornobai fire, March 2026 Чорнобаївський район · Chornobai, Semenivka, Orzhytsia

Out · last measured on 31 Mar 2026

The fire started on 31 March 2026 in Chornobai, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 271 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 12th largest in Cherkasy Oblast since 2016 (of 28 with a page). Number 319 in Ukraine in 2026, of 984.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Novi Sanzhary · 2022Pervomaiskyi · 2024Chornobai · 2024Orzhytsia · 2022

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but not yet its hotspots: NASA publishes the yearly hotspot archive only once the year closes. The page picks it up automatically when it is available.

Burnt area
271ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
31 Mar 2026 – 31 Mar 2026
Municipalities hit
3
districts
Started on
31 Mar
2026
Danger at start
8
Low · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

17°high
27km/h · peak gust
65%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.3 mm on 1 Apr.

This area had burned before

36% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 97 ha in 2024.

What happened to each town

  1. Chornobai Чорнобаївський район 39,584 inhabitants · 28.8 km from the centre where it started
    194 ha
    0.1 %
  2. Semenivka Семенівський район 23,914 inhabitants · 23.6 km from the centre
    69 ha
    0.0 %
  3. Orzhytsia Оржицький район 22,921 inhabitants · 20.7 km from the centre
    8 ha
    0.0 %

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 land93 %
  • Mixed forest3.7 %
  • Agricultural areas3.0 %

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)
31 Mar 17.1 °C 65 % 27 km/h 2.2 mm Low 8
1 Apr after 17.6 °C 66 % 21 km/h 3.3 mm Very low 2

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 7.5, a minimum humidity of 65% and 11 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2020: 6.

FWI at the start 7.5
Minimum humidity 65 %
Days without rain 11
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Novi Sanzhary fire, December 2022
158 ha 1 day FWI 0.8 Min. humidity 67 % 137 km away, in 2022

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 9.8 mm on 8 Dec.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 6. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.

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

3.3 mmfirst rain
1 Aprthe day after it ended
27km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 31 Mar, and on 1 Apr 3.3 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out.

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 2020.
  • 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 · 24 Mar 2026
After · 7 Apr 2026

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 March 2026 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
PM1029 µg/m³
Optical depth0.51
29 Mar31 Mar2 Apr
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Ukraine

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Chornobai fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 31 March 2026 and 31 March 2026: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 271 hectares (2.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Chornobai (194 ha, 0.1 %); Semenivka (69 ha, 0.0 %); Orzhytsia (8 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire came within 20.7 km of the centre of Orzhytsia, the closest of the areas it touched. 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 17.1 °C, humidity dropped to 65 % and gusts hit 27 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 · 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.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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. No 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.