Melitopol fire, February 2025 Мелітопольський район · Melitopol, Mykhailivka
The fire started on 25 February 2025 in Melitopol, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 720 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 18th largest in Zaporizhzhia Oblast since 2016 (of 490 with a page). Number 92 in Ukraine in 2025, of 1359.
- Burnt area
- 720ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 25 Feb 2025 – 25 Feb 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 25 Feb
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 14
- in a single hotspot: 56 MW
- Danger at start
- 1
- Very low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 273MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 30 ha in 2023.
What happened to each town
-
596 ha reached on 25 Feb0.4 %
-
124 ha reached on 25 Feb0.1 %
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
- Other natural land91 %
- Agricultural areas6.3 %
- Mixed forest3.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Feb | -2.4 °C | 48 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 26 Feb after | -0.5 °C | 44 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 0 |
| 27 Feb after | 1.6 °C | 45 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 0 |
| 28 Feb after | 4.6 °C | 34 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 1 Mar after | 4.3 °C | 40 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 2 Mar after | 3.5 °C | 44 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 3 Mar after | 4.2 °C | 60 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 4 Mar after | 6.1 °C | 60 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 5 Mar after | 10.6 °C | 54 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 2 |
| 6 Mar after | 16.8 °C | 38 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 7 Mar after | 18.5 °C | 33 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 28 February 2025 the air beside the fire reached 25 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 15: 1.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 14Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,119 haTokmak Токмак1 July 2026 · 2 days · 25 km away
- 1,900 haMykhailivka Михайлівський район24 July 2024 · 3 days · 38 km away
- 928 haMykhailivka Михайлівський районJune 2024 · 3 days · 39 km away
- 583 haMykhailivka Михайлівський район24 June 2026 · 1 day · 39 km away
- 1,134 haMykhailivka Михайлівський район8 July 2025 · 2 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Melitopol fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 25 February 2025 and 25 February 2025: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 720 hectares (7.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Melitopol (596 ha, 0.4 %); Mykhailivka (124 ha, 0.1 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 18.3 km of Melitopol. 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 -2.4 °C, humidity dropped to 48 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 1, class Very 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
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.