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Nikopol fire, September 2024 Нікополь · Nikopol

Out · last detection 16 Sept 2024, 23:31 UTC

The fire started on 16 September 2024 in Nikopol, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 126 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 142th largest in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast since 2016 (of 183 with a page). Number 1609 in Ukraine in 2024, of 2092.

The power measured by the satellite is low (2.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
126ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
16 Sept 2024 – 16 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
16 Sept
2024
Heat detections
2
in a single hotspot: 2 MW
Danger at start
51
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
3MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Sept16 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

16

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

26°high
64km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 14.1 mm on 18 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. Nikopol Нікополь 105,160 inhabitants · 13.0 km from the town where it started
    126 ha reached on 16 Sept
    0.1 %

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

  • Agricultural areas75 %
  • Other natural land25 %

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)
16 Sept 26.4 °C 22 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
17 Sept after 26.7 °C 24 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Sept after 24.0 °C 35 % 61 km/h 14.1 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Sept 2024
After · 23 Sept 2024

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 15 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 23 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 15: 1.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak23 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1078 µg/m³
Optical depth0.36
141516171819
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)

Detections table · 2Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Ukraine ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Nikopol fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 16 September 2024 and 16 September 2024: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 126 hectares (1.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Nikopol (126 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 13.0 km of Nikopol. 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 26.4 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 64 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, class Extreme.
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.