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Drohobych fire, 12 March 2022 Дрогобицький район · Drohobych, Sambir

Out · last detection 12 Mar 2022, 11:49 UTC

The fire started on 12 March 2022 in Drohobych, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 112 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 89th largest in Lviv Oblast since 2016 (of 105 with a page). Number 483 in Ukraine in 2022, of 531.

The power measured by the satellite is low (17.2 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
112ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
12 Mar 2022 – 13 Mar 2022
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
12 Mar
2022
Heat detections
1
in a single hotspot: 17 MW
Danger at start
0
Very low · FWI index
Energy released
17MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Mar13 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

12

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

The weather it burned in

6°high
20km/h · peak gust
34%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Drohobych Дрогобицький район 24.6 km from the town where it started
    107 ha reached on 12 Mar
    0.1 %
  2. Sambir Самбірський район 68,783 inhabitants · 22.4 km from the town
    5 ha
    0.0 %

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

  • Agricultural areas59 %
  • Other natural land32 %
  • Mixed forest9.9 %

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)
12 Mar 5.2 °C 34 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 0
13 Mar 6.0 °C 45 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 1
14 Mar after 11.4 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
15 Mar after 14.7 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
16 Mar after 8.2 °C 51 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
17 Mar after 6.2 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
18 Mar after 6.5 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
19 Mar after 7.2 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
20 Mar after 8.8 °C 29 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
21 Mar after 12.7 °C 27 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
22 Mar after 17.3 °C 28 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Low 5
23 Mar after 20.2 °C 12 % 13 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Mar 2022
After · 20 Mar 2022

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 16 March 2022 the air beside the fire reached 43 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 34: 2.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak43 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1050 µg/m³
10111213141516
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 · 1Every 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 Drohobych fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 12 March 2022 and 13 March 2022: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 112 hectares (1.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Drohobych (107 ha, 0.1 %); Sambir (5 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 22.4 km of Sambir. 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 6.0 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 20 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 1, class Very 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

Satellite cross-check

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
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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.