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Dvorichna fire, 21 August 2024 Дворічанський район · Dvorichna

Out · last detection 7 Sept 2024, 00:58 UTC

The fire started on 21 August 2024 in Dvorichna, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 5,551 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the largest fire in Kharkiv Oblast since 2016 (of 558 with a page). Number 6 in Ukraine in 2024, of 2092.

The power measured by the satellite is low (26.5 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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Suggestions: Dvorichna · 2024Dvorichna · 2024Dvorichna · 2024Dvorichna · 2024

Burnt area
5,551ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
18days
21 Aug 2024 – 7 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
21 Aug
2024
Heat detections
37
in a single hotspot: 26 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
53MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Aug7 Sept
7 Sept 2024

How it evolved, day by day

1 Sept 2024 · 14 MW · 3 4 Sept 2024 · 221 MW · 27 5 Sept 2024 · 15 MW · 3 6 Sept 2024 · 12 MW · 3 7 Sept 2024 · 1 MW · 1
1 Sept 4 Sept 5 Sept 6 Sept 7 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
60km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 29 ha in 2023.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.5% of the area of London (56 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Dvorichna Дворічанський район 8.7 km from the centre where it started
    5,552 ha reached on 1 Sept
    5.5 %

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 areas74 %
  • Mixed forest19 %
  • Other natural land5.7 %
  • Broadleaved forest0.8 %

Land cover inside the perimeter as reported by Copernicus EFFIS (outside the Corine Land Cover area).

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area0.55 ha
Residents≈ 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.55 hectares of built-up land and about 20 residents (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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)
21 Aug 35.8 °C 13 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
22 Aug 35.9 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
23 Aug 31.2 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.7 mm Very high 38
24 Aug 32.9 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Aug 34.1 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
26 Aug 33.9 °C 22 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Aug 31.4 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
28 Aug 32.2 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Aug 32.3 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
30 Aug 32.2 °C 14 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
31 Aug 33.3 °C 15 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
1 Sept 30.0 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
2 Sept 30.2 °C 20 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
3 Sept 27.4 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 54
4 Sept 29.3 °C 13 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
5 Sept 27.2 °C 26 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
6 Sept 25.4 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
7 Sept 25.4 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Sept after 26.2 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
9 Sept after 26.1 °C 19 % 47 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 49
10 Sept after 25.9 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 42
11 Sept after 27.6 °C 42 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
12 Sept after 30.5 °C 15 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
13 Sept after 28.3 °C 22 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
14 Sept after 30.0 °C 18 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
15 Sept after 28.4 °C 20 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
16 Sept after 27.8 °C 19 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
17 Sept after 25.5 °C 23 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Aug 2024
After · 14 Sept 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 4 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 27 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak27 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM10136 µg/m³
Optical depth0.64
1920212223242526272829303112345678910
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 · 37Every 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 Dvorichna fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 21 August 2024 to 7 September 2024 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 August 2024 to 31 August 2024.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 5,551 hectares (55.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Dvorichna (5,552 ha, 5.5 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Dvorichna and came within 8.7 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 35.9 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 67, class Extreme.
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

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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 21 August 2024 to 31 August 2024. 37 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 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.