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UA · Ukraine · –

Holo Prystan fire, 7 May 2022 Скадовський район · Holo Prystan

Out · last detection 7 May 2022, 10:57 UTC

The fire started on 7 May 2022 in Holo Prystan, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 129 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 895th largest in Kherson Oblast since 2016 (of 1102 with a page). Number 418 in Ukraine in 2022, of 531.

The power measured by the satellite is low (5.3 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
129ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
7 May 2022 – 10 May 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
7 May
2022
Heat detections
2
in a single hotspot: 5 MW
Danger at start
17
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
11MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 May10 May

How it evolved, day by day

7 May 2022 · 11 MW · 2

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

The weather it burned in

19°high
36km/h · peak gust
32%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.4 mm on 14 May.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Holo Prystan Скадовський район 127,000 inhabitants · 41.4 km from the centre where it started
    129 ha reached on 7 May
    0.1 %

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

  • Other natural land95 %
  • Mixed forest4.7 %

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)
7 May 17.8 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
8 May 18.5 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
9 May 18.7 °C 41 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
10 May 18.2 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
11 May after 18.9 °C 37 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
12 May after 20.7 °C 58 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
13 May after 21.3 °C 68 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
14 May after 19.9 °C 73 % 34 km/h 2.4 mm Very low 3

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 17.3, a minimum humidity of 36% and 7 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2022: 40.

FWI at the start 17.3
Minimum humidity 36 %
Days without rain 7
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Holo Prystan fire, June 2024
120 ha 5 days FWI 18.7 Min. humidity 36 % 53 km away, in 2024

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

5 days
median duration
210 ha
median area
10 %
went past 1,000 ha
3.9 mm
rain at the end (median; 31 of 40 had it)

It stayed below its twins: 129 ha against a median of 210 ha. It lasted 4 days, against 5 days.

In 9 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 3.9 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

2.4 mmfirst rain
14 May4 days after it ended
36km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 10 May, and on 14 May 2.4 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 31 of 40, with a median of 3.9 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 2022.
  • 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 · 30 Apr 2022
After · 17 May 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 9 May 2022 the air beside the fire reached 42 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak42 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1052 µg/m³
5 May7 May9 May11 May13 May
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 · 2Every 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 Holo Prystan fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 7 May 2022 and 10 May 2022: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 129 hectares (1.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Holo Prystan (129 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Holo Prystan and came within 41.4 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 18.7 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 21, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2022 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 40. Their median duration was 5 days and their median area 210 ha; 10 % went past 1,000 ha. In 9 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 3.9 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.

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. 2 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.