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Chuhuiv fire, 24 March 2024 Чугуївський район · Chuhuiv

Out · last detection 24 Mar 2024, 11:18 UTC

The fire started on 24 March 2024 in Chuhuiv, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 150 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 317th largest in Kharkiv Oblast since 2016 (of 558 with a page). Number 1323 in Ukraine in 2024, of 2092.

The power measured by the satellite is low (22.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Kupiansk · 2022Popasna · 2026Chuhuiv · 2026Zmiiv · 2024

Burnt area
150ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
24 Mar 2024 – 24 Mar 2024
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
24 Mar
2024
Heat detections
8
in a single hotspot: 22 MW
Danger at start
11
Low · FWI index
Average daily power
76MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Mar24 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

24 Mar 2024 · 76 MW · 8

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
49km/h · peak gust
42%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.2 mm on 29 Mar.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Chuhuiv Чугуївський район 9.8 km from the centre where it started
    150 ha reached on 24 Mar
    0.2 %

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

  • Agricultural areas57 %
  • Other natural land35 %
  • Mixed forest8.1 %

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)
24 Mar 13.5 °C 42 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
25 Mar after 12.7 °C 43 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
26 Mar after 13.3 °C 41 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm Low 7
27 Mar after 10.4 °C 56 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
28 Mar after 17.6 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 12
29 Mar after 19.2 °C 41 % 35 km/h 5.2 mm Low 11

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 10.8, a minimum humidity of 42% and 4 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2020: 40.

FWI at the start 10.8
Minimum humidity 42 %
Days without rain 4
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Kupiansk fire, March 2022
159 ha 1 day FWI 12.1 Min. humidity 40 % 59 km away, in 2022

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.8 mm on 2 Apr.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
149 ha
median area
5 %
went past 1,000 ha
3.0 mm
rain at the end (median; 23 of 40 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (150 ha against a median of 149 ha) and lasted 1 day, against 2 days.

In 17 of 40, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.0 mm.

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

5.2 mmfirst rain
29 Mar5 days after it ended
49km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 24 Mar, and on 29 Mar 5.2 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 23 of 40, with a median of 3.0 mm.

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 · 17 Mar 2024
After · 31 Mar 2024

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 27 March 2024 the air beside the fire reached 22 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak22 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1026 µg/m³
Optical depth0.41
22 Mar24 Mar26 Mar
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 · 8Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Ukraine

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Chuhuiv fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 24 March 2024 and 24 March 2024: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 150 hectares (1.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chuhuiv (150 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Chuhuiv and came within 9.8 km of its centre. 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 13.5 °C, humidity dropped to 42 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 11, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2020 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 40. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 149 ha; 5 % went past 1,000 ha. In 17 of 40, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.0 mm.

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. 8 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.