Mahdalynivka fire, September 2026
Магдалинівський район · Ukraine
Out · last detection 3 Oct 2026, 10:02 UTC
Satellites first detected fire on 28 September 2026 in Mahdalynivka, Ukraine. It was active for 6 days, with 7 heat detections and an area with fire of about 280 hectares rebuilt from them, spread across a single municipality.
The power measured by the satellite is low (28.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
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Burned area
satellite only
≈ 280ha
Estimated from hotspots: no perimeter has been published yet.
Source
NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
Date
28 Sept 2026 – 3 Oct 2026
+− cross-check
This is an estimate from the VIIRS pixels that saw fire. It will change when the perimeter is published.
Duration by satellite
satellite only
6days
28 Sept 2026 to 3 Oct 2026: first and last day with fire on the page.
Source
NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
Date
last detection: 3 Oct 2026, 10:02 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only
28 Sept 2026
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
Source
NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
Date
28 Sept 2026
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only
7
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 28 MW.
Source
NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
Date
28 Sept 2026 – 3 Oct 2026
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only
104MW
Total radiative power on 2 October 2026; hotspots that day: 7.
Source
NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
Date
2 Oct 2026
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model
4.5FWI · very low
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 0.
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings ›
Weather during the fire
model
19.4°C · 40% RH
High of 19.4 °C and minimum humidity of 40% on 29 September 2026; gusts of 48 km/h on 29 September 2026.
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
ⓘThis page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
Copernicus has not yet published the burnt perimeter, which takes a few days to measure on satellite imagery. For now the area is the one rebuilt from heat detections (about 14 hectares per pixel). When the perimeter arrives, this page picks it up on its own and keeps the same address.
Area with fire
≈ 280ha
rebuilt from hotspots, no official perimeter yet
Duration
6days
28 Sept 2026 – 3 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit
0
districts
Started on
28 Sept
2026
Heat detections
7
in a single hotspot: 28 MW
Danger at start
4
Very low · FWI index
Average daily power
104MW
detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
28 Sept3 Oct
Play back3 Oct 2026
How it evolved, day by day
2 Oct3 Oct
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
19°high
48km/h · peak gust
36%lowest humidity
It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
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)
28 Sept
19.2 °C
52 %
39 km/h
0.0 mm
Very low 4
29 Sept
19.4 °C
40 %
48 km/h
0.0 mm
Low 10
30 Sept
18.1 °C
54 %
37 km/h
0.0 mm
Low 8
1 Oct
18.5 °C
38 %
42 km/h
0.0 mm
Low 11
2 Oct
16.0 °C
36 %
37 km/h
0.0 mm
Low 11
3 Oct
16.5 °C
45 %
34 km/h
0.0 mm
Low 10
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 4.5, a minimum humidity of 52% and rain the day before. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2021: 10.
FWI at the start4.5
Minimum humidity52 %
Days without rain0
this firechosen twinsrest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
Blyzniuky fire, March 2024
217 ha7 daysFWI 0.8Min. humidity 54 %111 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 10. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.
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
—first rain
—no rain in ten days
48km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 3 Oct, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain.
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 2021.
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.
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 21 Sept 2026
After · 10 Oct 2026
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 26 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 10 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak10µg/m³
Days over the guideline0days
PM1011µg/m³
Optical depth0.29
26 Sept28 Sept30 Sept2 Oct
GoodFairModeratePoorVery poorExtremely 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· 7Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.›
⬇ Download CSVTimes in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
According to the heat detections seen by satellite, it burned from 28 September 2026 to 3 October 2026 (6 days between the first and the last detection). There is no perimeter yet to date it.
How much area did it burn?
There is no official perimeter yet. Heat detections rebuild about 280 hectares with fire (2.8 km²); Copernicus will publish the measured figure within days.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 19.4 °C, humidity dropped to 36 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 11, class 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.
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 errorHow we know this›
No perimeter yet: the area (≈ 280 ha) is estimated by counting VIIRS pixels with fire, about 14 ha each.
Dates of the first and last VIIRS detection of the cluster. 7 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.