How long did the Kreminna fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 May 2023 to 20 May 2023 (7 days). The perimeter dates it from 14 May 2023 to 14 May 2023.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 135 hectares (1.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Kreminna (134 ha, 0.1 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire started in Kreminna and came within 18.1 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 23.8 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 27 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 12, class Moderate.

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 · 2023-05-14 → 2023-05-20

Kreminna fire, May 2023 Кремінський район · Kreminna

Out · last detection 20 May 2023, 09:32 UTC

The fire started on 14 May 2023 in Kreminna, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 135 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

We are reviewing this page: some of its data look inconsistent (the place, the dates or the area), so treat them with caution.

The power measured by the satellite is low (15.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Kreminna · 2022 Kreminna · 2024 Lyman · 2022 Lyman · 2024

Burnt area: 135ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 7days; 14 May 2023 – 20 May 2023
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 14 May; 2023
Heat detections: 9; in a single hotspot: 15 MW
Danger at start: 12; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 30MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 May20 May

Play back 20 May 2023

How it evolved, day by day

16 May 17 May 20 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

27km/h · peak gust

29%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.6 mm on 23 May.

This area had burned before

33% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 44 ha in 2022.

1 ha Kreminna fire, May 2022 620 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Kreminna Кремінський район 41,084 inhabitants · 18.1 km from the centre where it started

134 ha reached on 16 May

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

Coniferous forest100 %

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)
14 May	23.8 °C	29 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
15 May	23.4 °C	29 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
16 May	22.5 °C	32 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
17 May	24.4 °C	27 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
18 May	26.3 °C	25 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
19 May	26.0 °C	26 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
20 May	26.9 °C	28 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
21 May after	23.9 °C	42 %	30 km/h	0.4 mm	Moderate 19
22 May after	21.2 °C	52 %	38 km/h	0.4 mm	Moderate 17
23 May after	21.1 °C	71 %	26 km/h	3.6 mm	Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 7 May 2023

After · 27 May 2023

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 17 May 2023 the air beside the fire reached 16 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak16 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1018 µg/m³

Optical depth0.44

WHO 15

121314151617

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 · 9Every 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 Kreminna fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 May 2023 to 20 May 2023 (7 days). The perimeter dates it from 14 May 2023 to 14 May 2023.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 135 hectares (1.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Kreminna (134 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire started in Kreminna and came within 18.1 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 23.8 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 27 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 12, class Moderate.
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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

ДСНС · State Emergency Service ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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

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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What do you think is wrong?

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.

How we know this

Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 14 May 2023 to 14 May 2023. 9 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.

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.

Where it burned