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Kharkiv fire, 17 May 2024 Харківський район · Kharkiv

Out · last measured on 17 May 2024

The fire started on 17 May 2024 in Kharkiv, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 236 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 160th largest in Kharkiv Oblast since 2016 (of 558 with a page). Number 767 in Ukraine in 2024, of 2092.

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
236ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
17 May 2024 – 17 May 2024
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
17 May
2024
Danger at start
5
Low · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

15°high
39km/h · peak gust
48%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 22 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. Kharkiv Харківський район 178,602 inhabitants · 28.5 km from the town where it started
    237 ha
    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

  • Mixed forest72 %
  • Agricultural areas16 %
  • Other natural land11 %

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)
17 May 14.7 °C 48 % 39 km/h 2.1 mm Low 5
18 May after 20.5 °C 41 % 26 km/h 0.5 mm Low 7
19 May after 21.8 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
20 May after 24.4 °C 28 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
21 May after 25.4 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 17
22 May after 26.1 °C 31 % 16 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 13

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 May 2024
After · 24 May 2024

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 16 May 2024 the air beside the fire reached 10 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak10 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1011 µg/m³
Optical depth0.73
151617181920
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 Kharkiv fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 17 May 2024 and 17 May 2024: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 236 hectares (2.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kharkiv (237 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 28.5 km of Kharkiv. 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 14.7 °C, humidity dropped to 48 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 5, class 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

Satellite cross-check

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.

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.