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Melitopol fire, 21 July 2026 Мелітопольський район · Melitopol

Out · last measured on 31 Jul 2026

The fire started on 21 July 2026 in Melitopol, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 119 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 397th largest in Zaporizhzhia Oblast since 2016 (of 490 with a page). Number 801 in Ukraine in 2026, of 984.

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Suggestions: Melitopol · 2024Melitopol · 2026Melitopol · 2026Melitopol · 2025

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but not yet its hotspots: NASA publishes the yearly hotspot archive only once the year closes. The page picks it up automatically when it is available.

Burnt area
119ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
11days
21 Jul 2026 – 31 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
21 Jul
2026
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

32°high
46km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 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. Melitopol Мелітопольський район 48,698 inhabitants · 15.8 km from the centre where it started
    119 ha reached on 21 Jul
    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

  • Agricultural areas82 %
  • Other natural land17 %
  • 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)
21 Jul 31.6 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
22 Jul 30.6 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
23 Jul 23.7 °C 49 % 42 km/h 10.1 mm Very low 5
24 Jul 27.1 °C 43 % 39 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 12
25 Jul 25.5 °C 52 % 36 km/h 4.2 mm Very low 4
26 Jul 28.0 °C 41 % 39 km/h 3.7 mm Very low 5
27 Jul 29.6 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
28 Jul 28.6 °C 33 % 41 km/h 1.4 mm Moderate 14
29 Jul 25.7 °C 30 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
30 Jul 27.4 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
31 Jul 29.8 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
1 Aug after 31.6 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
2 Aug after 33.1 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
3 Aug after 33.1 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
4 Aug after 33.9 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Aug after 34.9 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Aug after 34.8 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
7 Aug after 35.3 °C 24 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
8 Aug after 34.9 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
9 Aug after 32.4 °C 42 % 44 km/h 0.3 mm High 35
10 Aug after 32.7 °C 43 % 34 km/h 0.6 mm High 26

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Jul 2026
After · 7 Aug 2026

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 23 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 14 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak14 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1017 µg/m³
Optical depth0.51
192021222324
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 Melitopol fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 21 July 2026 to 31 July 2026 (11 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 July 2026 to 21 July 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 119 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Melitopol (119 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Melitopol and came within 15.8 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 31.6 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, class 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.

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

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 21 July 2026 to 21 July 2026. 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.