Skip to content
worldfires
UA · Ukraine · →

Kovel fire, 12 May 2022 Ковельський район · Kovel

Out · last measured on 12 May 2022

The fire started on 12 May 2022 in Kovel, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 109 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 63th largest in Volyn Oblast since 2016 (of 71 with a page). Number 501 in Ukraine in 2022, of 531.

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
109ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
12 May 2022 – 12 May 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
12 May
2022
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

28°high
70km/h · peak gust
32%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.4 mm on 14 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. Kovel Ковельський район 40,337 inhabitants · 39.7 km from the town where it started
    109 ha
    0.1 %

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

  • Coniferous forest86 %
  • Mixed forest8.9 %
  • Agricultural areas4.5 %
  • Other natural land0.9 %

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)
12 May 27.8 °C 32 % 70 km/h 0.7 mm High 24
13 May after 21.0 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 14
14 May after 16.7 °C 49 % 56 km/h 4.4 mm Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 May 2022
After · 19 May 2022

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 12 May 2022 the air beside the fire reached 15 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak15 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1024 µg/m³
101112131415
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 Kovel fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 12 May 2022 and 12 May 2022: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 109 hectares (1.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kovel (109 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 39.7 km of Kovel. 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 27.8 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 70 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, 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.

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.