How long did the Izium fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 20 March 2022 to 24 March 2022 (5 days). The perimeter dates it from 20 March 2022 to 23 March 2022.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 334 hectares (3.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Izium (333 ha, 0.2 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 14.5 km of Izium. 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 11.7 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 2, 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.

UA · Ukraine · 2022-03-20 → 2022-03-24

Izium fire, 20 March 2022 Ізюмський район · Izium

Out · last detection 24 Mar 2022, 11:24 UTC

The fire started on 20 March 2022 in Izium, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 334 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 101th largest in Kharkiv Oblast since 2016 (of 558 with a page). Number 140 in Ukraine in 2022, of 531.

The power measured by the satellite is low (18.2 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: Lyman · 2024 Sloviansk · 2024 Izium · 2024 Izium · 2024

Burnt area: 334ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 5days; 20 Mar 2022 – 24 Mar 2022
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 20 Mar; 2022
Heat detections: 22; in a single hotspot: 18 MW
Danger at start: 1; Very low · FWI index
Average daily power: 122MW; detected power per day, on average

Play back 24 Mar 2022

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Mar24 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

20 Mar 24 Mar

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

The weather it burned in

12°high

36km/h · peak gust

24%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.5 mm on 27 Mar.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

Izium Ізюмський район 17,029 inhabitants · 14.5 km from the town where it started

333 ha reached on 20 Mar

0.2 %

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

Other natural land81 %
Mixed forest9.8 %
Agricultural areas9.0 %

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)
20 Mar	5.4 °C	24 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 1
21 Mar	11.3 °C	41 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 2
22 Mar	8.7 °C	31 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 2
23 Mar	11.7 °C	28 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 2
24 Mar	12.3 °C	23 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 4
25 Mar after	11.8 °C	20 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 4
26 Mar after	14.5 °C	30 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
27 Mar after	7.9 °C	57 %	63 km/h	3.5 mm	Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 13 Mar 2022

After · 31 Mar 2022

Before After

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 24 March 2022 the air beside the fire reached 39 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak39 µg/m³

Days over the guideline4 days

PM1041 µg/m³

WHO 15

18192021222324252627

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 · 22Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Ukraine ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Izium fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 20 March 2022 to 24 March 2022 (5 days). The perimeter dates it from 20 March 2022 to 23 March 2022.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 334 hectares (3.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Izium (333 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 14.5 km of Izium. 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 11.7 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 2, 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

ДСНС · State Emergency Service ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 20 March 2022 to 23 March 2022. 22 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.

Where it burned