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Lutuhyne fire, 7 September 2023 Лутугинський район · Lutuhyne

Out · last measured on 11 Sept 2023

The fire started on 7 September 2023 in Lutuhyne, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 118 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 773th largest in Luhansk Oblast since 2016 (of 909 with a page). Number 415 in Ukraine in 2023, of 491.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Lutuhyne · 2024Novoaidar · 2022Antratsyt · 2024Antratsyt · 2024

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
118ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
5days
7 Sept 2023 – 11 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
7 Sept
2023
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

24°high
49km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 18.2 mm on 15 Sept.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Lutuhyne Лутугинський район 65,908 inhabitants · 11.8 km from the centre where it started
    118 ha
    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

  • Other natural land58 %
  • Agricultural areas41 %
  • Mixed forest0.8 %

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)
7 Sept 23.7 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.3 mm High 30
8 Sept 19.9 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
9 Sept 15.0 °C 45 % 49 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 39
10 Sept 19.6 °C 46 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
11 Sept 20.4 °C 48 % 33 km/h 0.5 mm High 28
12 Sept after 20.9 °C 40 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
13 Sept after 20.2 °C 39 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
14 Sept after 21.6 °C 31 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
15 Sept after 19.8 °C 44 % 27 km/h 18.2 mm High 31

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 29.7, a minimum humidity of 30% and 1 day without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2020: 28.

FWI at the start 29.7
Minimum humidity 30 %
Days without rain 1
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Lutuhyne fire, July 2024
109 ha 1 day FWI 29.5 Min. humidity 29 % 4 km away, in 2024

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.6 mm on 29 Jul.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

3 days
median duration
202 ha
median area
4 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.0 mm
rain at the end (median; 21 of 28 had it)

It stayed below its twins: 118 ha against a median of 202 ha. It lasted 5 days, against 3 days.

In 7 of 28, 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 2.0 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

18.2 mmfirst rain
15 Sept4 days after it ended
49km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 11 Sept, and on 15 Sept 18.2 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 21 of 28, with a median of 2.0 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 · 31 Aug 2023
After · 18 Sept 2023

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 11 September 2023 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
PM1019 µg/m³
Optical depth0.39
5 Sept7 Sept9 Sept11 Sept
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 Lutuhyne fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 7 September 2023 to 11 September 2023 (5 days). The perimeter dates it from 7 September 2023 to 8 September 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 118 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lutuhyne (118 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Lutuhyne and came within 11.8 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 23.7 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 49 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: 28. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 202 ha; 4 % went past 1,000 ha. In 7 of 28, 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 2.0 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.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 7 September 2023 to 8 September 2023. No 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.