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Malyn fire, March 2020 Малинський район · Malyn

Out · last measured on 26 Mar 2020

The fire started on 26 March 2020 in Malyn, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 168 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.

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
168ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
26 Mar 2020 – 26 Mar 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
26 Mar
2020
Danger at start
5
Low · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

11°high
32km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Malyn Малинський район 18,562 inhabitants · 22.3 km from the town where it started
    168 ha
    0.2 %

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

  • Agricultural areas71 %
  • Mixed forest18 %
  • Other natural land9.7 %
  • Artificial surfaces1.1 %
  • Broadleaved forest0.6 %

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)
26 Mar 11.3 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Low 5
27 Mar after 15.8 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
28 Mar after 16.2 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
29 Mar after 18.5 °C 22 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
30 Mar after 8.5 °C 55 % 49 km/h 0.1 mm Low 8
31 Mar after 5.0 °C 26 % 47 km/h 0.1 mm Low 9
1 Apr after 6.9 °C 29 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
2 Apr after 12.4 °C 18 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 11
3 Apr after 15.3 °C 16 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
4 Apr after 12.7 °C 17 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
5 Apr after 11.7 °C 19 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Mar 2020
After · 2 Apr 2020

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 28 March 2020 the air beside the fire reached 23 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak23 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1030 µg/m³
242526272829
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 Malyn fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 26 March 2020 and 26 March 2020: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 168 hectares (1.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Malyn (168 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 22.3 km of Malyn. 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 11.3 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 5, 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.

Emergency number: 101 · 112

Satellite cross-check

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.

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.