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Kreminna fire, 3 May 2022 Кремінський район · Kreminna

Out · last detection 12 May 2022, 23:18 UTC

The fire started on 3 May 2022 in Kreminna, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 620 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 130th largest in Luhansk Oblast since 2016 (of 909 with a page). Number 74 in Ukraine in 2022, of 531.

The power measured by the satellite is low (16.2 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
620ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
10days
3 May 2022 – 12 May 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
3 May
2022
Heat detections
27
in a single hotspot: 16 MW
Danger at start
16
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
19MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 May12 May
12 May 2022

How it evolved, day by day

3 May 2022 · 8 MW · 1 5 May 2022 · 3 MW · 1 6 May 2022 · 5 MW · 1 7 May 2022 · 80 MW · 12 8 May 2022 · 29 MW · 6 9 May 2022 · 3 MW · 1 12 May 2022 · 5 MW · 5
3 May 7 May 12 May

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

The weather it burned in

24°high
55km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.3 mm on 14 May.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.4% of the area of London (6.2 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Kreminna Кремінський район 41,084 inhabitants · 15.9 km from the centre where it started
    617 ha reached on 3 May
    0.4 %

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

  • Coniferous forest93 %
  • Mixed forest7.3 %

Land cover inside the perimeter as reported by Copernicus EFFIS (outside the Corine Land Cover area).

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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.

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)
3 May 18.2 °C 24 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
4 May 19.6 °C 28 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
5 May 15.9 °C 23 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
6 May 16.2 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
7 May 17.6 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
8 May 21.7 °C 7 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
9 May 22.3 °C 26 % 53 km/h 0.6 mm High 30
10 May 13.1 °C 29 % 51 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
11 May 17.0 °C 27 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
12 May 23.9 °C 21 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
13 May after 24.0 °C 21 % 49 km/h 0.8 mm High 31
14 May after 15.9 °C 63 % 28 km/h 7.3 mm Very low 1

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 16.1, a minimum humidity of 24% and 8 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2020: 24.

FWI at the start 16.1
Minimum humidity 24 %
Days without rain 8
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Sloviansk fire, April 2024
121 ha 1 day FWI 17.4 Min. humidity 25 % 34 km away, in 2024

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 6.8 mm on 15 Apr.

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
197 ha
median area
8 %
went past 1,000 ha
4.6 mm
rain at the end (median; 21 of 24 had it)

It was 3.1 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 10 days, against 2 days.

Only 4 of its 24 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 3 of 24, 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 4.6 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

7.3 mmfirst rain
14 May2 days after it ended
55km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 12 May, and on 14 May 7.3 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 21 of 24, with a median of 4.6 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 2020.
  • 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 · 26 Apr 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 4 May 2022 the air beside the fire reached 24 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak24 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1029 µg/m³
1 May4 May7 May10 May13 May
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 · 27Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Ukraine

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kreminna fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 3 May 2022 to 12 May 2022 (10 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 May 2022 to 9 May 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 620 hectares (6.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kreminna (617 ha, 0.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Kreminna and came within 15.9 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 23.9 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 55 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 2020 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 24. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 197 ha; 8 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 4 of its 24 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 3 of 24, 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 4.6 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.

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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 3 May 2022 to 9 May 2022. 27 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 2020, 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.