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Kalanchak fire, 31 August 2023 Каланчацький район · Kalanchak

Out · last measured on 3 Sept 2023

The fire started on 31 August 2023 in Kalanchak, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 105 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1066th largest in Kherson Oblast since 2016 (of 1102 with a page). Number 464 in Ukraine in 2023, of 491.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Simferopol · 2025Holo Prystan · 2024Kalanchak · 2023Kalanchak · 2026

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
105ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
31 Aug 2023 – 3 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
31 Aug
2023
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

32°high
36km/h · peak gust
33%lowest humidity

It had gone 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Kalanchak Каланчацький район 21,135 inhabitants · 5.2 km from the centre where it started
    105 ha
    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 land78 %
  • Mixed forest16 %
  • Agricultural areas6.8 %

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)
31 Aug 31.5 °C 45 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
1 Sept 29.8 °C 50 % 29 km/h 0.6 mm High 23
2 Sept 28.7 °C 39 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Sept 27.7 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Sept after 29.0 °C 38 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Sept after 27.8 °C 35 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
6 Sept after 29.0 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
7 Sept after 28.0 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Sept after 24.5 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Sept after 25.4 °C 30 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
10 Sept after 21.3 °C 36 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Sept after 24.6 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
12 Sept after 25.9 °C 35 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
13 Sept after 26.9 °C 35 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 30.3, a minimum humidity of 45% and 19 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2022: 29.

FWI at the start 30.3
Minimum humidity 45 %
Days without rain 19
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Simferopol fire, July 2025
121 ha 1 day FWI 28.2 Min. humidity 45 % 129 km away, in 2025

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

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

3 days
median duration
184 ha
median area
3 %
went past 1,000 ha
5.4 mm
rain at the end (median; 17 of 29 had it)

It stayed below its twins: 105 ha against a median of 184 ha. It lasted 4 days, against 3 days.

In 12 of 29, 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 5.4 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

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
36km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 3 Sept, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 17 of 29, with a median of 5.4 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 · 24 Aug 2023
After · 10 Sept 2023

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 29 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 17 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak17 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1022 µg/m³
Optical depth0.58
29 Aug31 Aug2 Sept
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Ukraine

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kalanchak fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 31 August 2023 to 3 September 2023 (4 days). The perimeter dates it from 31 August 2023 to 31 August 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 105 hectares (1.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kalanchak (105 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Kalanchak and came within 5.2 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 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, class Very 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: 29. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 184 ha; 3 % went past 1,000 ha. In 12 of 29, 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 5.4 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.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 31 August 2023 to 31 August 2023. No 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.