Drohobych fire, 20 October 2021 Дрогобицький район · Drohobych
The fire started on 20 October 2021 in Drohobych, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 221 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
This entry is probably an agricultural burn of stubble, meadow or peatland, not a wildfire. Before the war, stubble and meadows in Ukraine were burnt every spring and autumn, and the fire often got out of hand. This is our assumption, based on the time of year, ground with almost no woodland and the lack of news about this fire; it is not confirmed. That is why it is left out of the wildfire rankings.
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.
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- Burnt area
- 221ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 10days
- 20 Oct 2021 – 29 Oct 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 20 Oct
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 5
- in a single hotspot: 19 MW
- Danger at start
- 10
- Low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 23MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 7 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
-
221 ha reached on 25 Oct0.1 %
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 areas44 %
- Other natural land40 %
- Mixed forest16 %
- Broadleaved forest0.9 %
Land cover inside the perimeter as reported by Copernicus EFFIS (outside the Corine Land Cover area).
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2020Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 Oct | 15.9 °C | 46 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 28 Oct | 17.6 °C | 41 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 29 Oct | 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.
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 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).
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 · 5Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 452 haDrohobych Дрогобицький район20 October 2021 · 6 days · 1 km away
- 1,006 haDrohobych Дрогобицький район28 January 2025 · 6 days · 2 km away
- 530 haDrohobych Дрогобицький район22 February 2025 · 4 days · 3 km away
- 1,146 haSambir Самбірський районMarch 2020 · 11 days · 8 km away
- 865 haSambir Самбірський район14 March 2026 · 5 days · 8 km away
- 698 haDrohobych Дрогобицький район28 January 2025 · 3 days · 8 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Drohobych fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 20 October 2021 to 29 October 2021 (10 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 October 2021 to 29 October 2021.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 221 hectares (2.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Drohobych (221 ha, 0.1 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Drohobych and came within 20.1 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 19.9 °C, humidity dropped to 41 % and gusts hit 28 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 10, 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.
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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How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 27 October 2021 to 29 October 2021. 5 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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
- Probably a vegetation burn: not counted in the totals.
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.