How long did the Kozelets fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 20 March 2021 and 23 March 2021: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 943 hectares (9.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Kozelets (945 ha, 0.4 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 26.6 km of Kozelets. 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 10.7 °C, humidity dropped to 36 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 1, 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 · 2021-03-20 → 2021-03-23

Kozelets fire, 20 March 2021 Козелецький район · Kozelets

Out · last detection 21 Mar 2021, 09:43 UTC

The fire started on 20 March 2021 in Kozelets, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 943 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

This entry is probably an agricultural burn of stubble, meadow or peatland, not a wildfire. Before the war, stubble and meadows in Ukraine were burnt every spring and autumn, and the fire often got out of hand. This is our assumption, based on the time of year, ground with almost no woodland and the lack of news about this fire; it is not confirmed. That is why it is left out of the wildfire rankings.

The power measured by the satellite is low (7.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 943ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 4days; 20 Mar 2021 – 23 Mar 2021
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 20 Mar; 2021
Heat detections: 6; in a single hotspot: 7 MW
Danger at start: 0; Very low · FWI index
Energy released: 12MW; sum of detected power

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Mar23 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

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

The weather it burned in

11°high

53km/h · peak gust

36%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.2 mm on 2 Apr.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

Kozelets Козелецький район 26.6 km from the town where it started

945 ha reached on 21 Mar

0.4 %

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 land67 %
Agricultural areas17 %
Mixed forest16 %

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	5.3 °C	44 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 0
21 Mar	3.4 °C	46 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 0
22 Mar	2.7 °C	60 %	35 km/h	0.9 mm	Very low 0
23 Mar	3.2 °C	49 %	53 km/h	1.9 mm	Very low 0
24 Mar after	5.8 °C	43 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 0
25 Mar after	8.3 °C	36 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 0
26 Mar after	10.7 °C	46 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 1
27 Mar after	13.1 °C	42 %	27 km/h	0.2 mm	Very low 1
28 Mar after	14.0 °C	39 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 2
29 Mar after	10.8 °C	54 %	27 km/h	0.4 mm	Very low 2
30 Mar after	12.5 °C	42 %	32 km/h	0.1 mm	Very low 3
31 Mar after	12.6 °C	49 %	33 km/h	0.7 mm	Very low 2
1 Apr after	18.0 °C	47 %	32 km/h	0.2 mm	Very low 3
2 Apr after	10.6 °C	55 %	37 km/h	8.2 mm	Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 13 Mar 2021

After · 30 Mar 2021

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 27 March 2021 the air beside the fire reached 26 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 21: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak26 µg/m³

Days over the guideline1 day

PM1029 µg/m³

WHO 15

181920212223242526272829

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 · 6Every 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 Kozelets fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 20 March 2021 and 23 March 2021: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 943 hectares (9.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Kozelets (945 ha, 0.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 26.6 km of Kozelets. 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 10.7 °C, humidity dropped to 36 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 1, 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.

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

What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned