How long did the Drohobych fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 20 October 2021 and 23 October 2021: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 452 hectares (4.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Drohobych (453 ha, 0.2 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 19.4 km of Drohobych. 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 16.6 °C, humidity dropped to 41 % and gusts hit 78 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 14, class Moderate.

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 · 2021-10-20 → 2021-10-23

Drohobych fire, 20 October 2021 Дрогобицький район · Drohobych

Out · last detection 23 Oct 2021, 10:35 UTC

The fire started on 20 October 2021 in Drohobych, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 452 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 10th largest in Lviv Oblast since 2016 (of 105 with a page). Number 6 in Ukraine in 2021, of 18.

The power measured by the satellite is low (19.4 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: 452ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 4days; 20 Oct 2021 – 23 Oct 2021
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 20 Oct; 2021
Heat detections: 11; in a single hotspot: 19 MW
Danger at start: 11; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 52MW; sum of detected power

Play back 23 Oct 2021

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Oct23 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

202123

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

The weather it burned in

17°high

78km/h · peak gust

41%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 2 Nov.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

Drohobych Дрогобицький район 19.4 km from the town where it started

453 ha reached on 20 Oct

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 land43 %
Mixed forest38 %
Agricultural areas17 %
Broadleaved forest2.5 %

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)
20 Oct	16.2 °C	45 %	65 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 11
21 Oct	16.6 °C	50 %	78 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
22 Oct	15.6 °C	41 %	46 km/h	0.1 mm	Low 10
23 Oct	11.0 °C	41 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 11
24 Oct after	8.6 °C	55 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 8
25 Oct after	14.1 °C	38 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 7
26 Oct after	15.4 °C	33 %	16 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 8
27 Oct after	15.9 °C	46 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
28 Oct after	17.6 °C	41 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
29 Oct after	19.9 °C	41 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
30 Oct after	19.6 °C	38 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
31 Oct after	16.8 °C	46 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
1 Nov after	13.4 °C	53 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
2 Nov after	10.2 °C	60 %	33 km/h	1.9 mm	Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 13 Oct 2021

After · 30 Oct 2021

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 28 October 2021 the air beside the fire reached 36 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 27: 1.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak36 µg/m³

Days over the guideline6 days

PM1051 µg/m³

WHO 15

18192021222324252627282930311

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 · 11Every 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 Drohobych fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 20 October 2021 and 23 October 2021: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 452 hectares (4.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Drohobych (453 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 19.4 km of Drohobych. 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 16.6 °C, humidity dropped to 41 % and gusts hit 78 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 14, class Moderate.
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.

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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