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Holo Prystan fire, 18 July 2026 Скадовський район · Holo Prystan

Out · last detection 13 Aug 2026, 10:38 UTC

The fire started on 18 July 2026 in Holo Prystan, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 37 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 126 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 909th largest in Kherson Oblast since 2016 (of 1102 with a page). Number 759 in Ukraine in 2026, of 984.

The power measured by the satellite is low (7.0 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 · 2023Oleshky · 2023Holo Prystan · 2023Holo Prystan · 2025

Burnt area
126ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
≈ 37days
18 Jul 2026 – 23 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
18 Jul
2026
Heat detections
1
in a single hotspot: 7 MW
Danger at start
20
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
7MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jul23 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

13 Aug 2026 · 7 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

35°high
44km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.8 mm on 28 Aug.

This area had burned before

87% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 109 ha in 2025.

What happened to each town

  1. Holo Prystan Скадовський район 127,000 inhabitants · 37.6 km from the centre where it started
    126 ha reached on 13 Aug
    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 land99 %
  • Mixed 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 area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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)
18 Jul 28.4 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
19 Jul 28.0 °C 46 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
20 Jul 28.0 °C 57 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
21 Jul 24.3 °C 67 % 38 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 20
22 Jul 26.4 °C 48 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
23 Jul 23.3 °C 56 % 41 km/h 2.0 mm Moderate 16
24 Jul 24.8 °C 43 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
25 Jul 25.8 °C 45 % 35 km/h 0.5 mm High 30
26 Jul 26.9 °C 41 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
27 Jul 26.8 °C 46 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Jul 26.4 °C 46 % 39 km/h 6.2 mm Low 9
29 Jul 25.8 °C 37 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
30 Jul 26.1 °C 42 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
31 Jul 28.3 °C 40 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
1 Aug 30.4 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Aug 31.6 °C 37 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Aug 31.8 °C 36 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Aug 33.0 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 Aug 33.7 °C 37 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Aug 35.2 °C 38 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
7 Aug 34.9 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
8 Aug 32.4 °C 34 % 41 km/h 0.7 mm Very high 42
9 Aug 29.9 °C 46 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Aug 31.1 °C 50 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
11 Aug 32.2 °C 44 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
12 Aug 29.3 °C 37 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Aug 25.7 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Aug 25.7 °C 35 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Aug 26.2 °C 35 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Aug 27.5 °C 45 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
17 Aug 28.1 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
18 Aug 27.7 °C 44 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 Aug 23.6 °C 54 % 30 km/h 3.3 mm Low 8
20 Aug 26.9 °C 53 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
21 Aug 28.2 °C 51 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
22 Aug 31.9 °C 43 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
23 Aug 31.3 °C 36 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Aug after 27.6 °C 39 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
25 Aug after 28.2 °C 42 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
26 Aug after 25.4 °C 49 % 38 km/h 0.2 mm High 21
27 Aug after 22.9 °C 59 % 35 km/h 0.5 mm High 26
28 Aug after 23.3 °C 57 % 46 km/h 5.8 mm Moderate 11

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 19.7, a minimum humidity of 30% and 6 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2022: 38.

FWI at the start 19.7
Minimum humidity 30 %
Days without rain 6
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Oleshky fire, June 2023
939 ha 4 days FWI 20.9 Min. humidity 30 % 75 km away, in 2023

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 9.2 mm on 10 Jun.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
226 ha
median area
11 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.4 mm
rain at the end (median; 30 of 38 had it)

It stayed below its twins: 126 ha against a median of 226 ha. It lasted 37 days, against 2 days.

In 8 of 38, 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 2.4 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

5.8 mmfirst rain
28 Aug5 days after it ended
44km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 23 Aug, and on 28 Aug 5.8 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 30 of 38, with a median of 2.4 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 · 11 Jul 2026
After · 30 Aug 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 21 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 8 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak8 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1010 µg/m³
Optical depth0.43
16 Jul18 Jul20 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 (18 July 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 23 August 2026 (37 days from 18 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 126 hectares (1.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Holo Prystan (126 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Holo Prystan and came within 37.6 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 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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.
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: 38. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 226 ha; 11 % went past 1,000 ha. In 8 of 38, 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 2.4 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.