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Holo Prystan fire, 12 July 2026 Скадовський район · Holo Prystan

Out · last detection 19 Jul 2026, 11:47 UTC

The fire started on 12 July 2026 in Holo Prystan, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 158 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 745th largest in Kherson Oblast since 2016 (of 1102 with a page). Number 596 in Ukraine in 2026, of 984.

The power measured by the satellite is low (5.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Oleshky · 2024Bilozerka · 2026Holo Prystan · 2025Holo Prystan · 2024

Burnt area
158ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
≈ 8days
12 Jul 2026 – 19 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
12 Jul
2026
Heat detections
1
in a single hotspot: 5 MW
Danger at start
13
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
5MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Jul19 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

19 Jul 2026 · 5 MW · 1

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
34km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 21 Jul.

This area had burned before

60% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4 ha in 2023, 42 ha in 2024, 77 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 95 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Holo Prystan Скадовський район 127,000 inhabitants · 20.5 km from the centre where it started
    158 ha reached on 19 Jul
    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

  • Coniferous forest68 %
  • Mixed forest27 %
  • Other land cover3.2 %
  • Other natural land1.9 %

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 area0.83 ha
Residents≈ 30

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.83 hectares of built-up land and about 30 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)
12 Jul 25.2 °C 47 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
13 Jul 25.7 °C 51 % 30 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 15
14 Jul 27.3 °C 48 % 31 km/h 1.7 mm Moderate 15
15 Jul 29.1 °C 45 % 28 km/h 0.3 mm Low 10
16 Jul 30.5 °C 39 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
17 Jul 28.1 °C 43 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
18 Jul 27.9 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
19 Jul 29.4 °C 38 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
20 Jul after 29.8 °C 43 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
21 Jul after 25.6 °C 52 % 40 km/h 1.2 mm High 26

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 13.0, a minimum humidity of 47% and 1 day without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2022: 17.

FWI at the start 13.0
Minimum humidity 47 %
Days without rain 1
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Oleshky fire, September 2024
213 ha 4 days FWI 13.4 Min. humidity 49 % 36 km away, in 2024

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.3 mm on 18 Sept.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

4 days
median duration
155 ha
median area
0 %
went past 1,000 ha
3.9 mm
rain at the end (median; 13 of 17 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (158 ha against a median of 155 ha) and lasted 8 days, against 4 days.

In 4 of 17, 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

1.2 mmfirst rain
21 Jul2 days after it ended
34km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 19 Jul, and on 21 Jul 1.2 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 13 of 17, 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 · 5 Jul 2026
After · 26 Jul 2026

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 10 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 7 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak7 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM109 µg/m³
Optical depth0.45
10 Jul12 Jul14 Jul
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 Holo Prystan fire last?
The official perimeter only gives the start date (12 July 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 19 July 2026 (8 days from 12 July 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 158 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Holo Prystan (158 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Holo Prystan and came within 20.5 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 30.5 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 23, class High.
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: 17. Their median duration was 4 days and their median area 155 ha; 0 % went past 1,000 ha. In 4 of 17, 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.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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.
  • The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. One Suomi-NPP VIIRS detection 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.