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Novomoskovsk fire, 27 August 2024 Новомосковський район · Novomoskovsk

Out · last detection 2 Sept 2024, 00:52 UTC

The fire started on 27 August 2024 in Novomoskovsk, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 561 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 16th largest in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast since 2016 (of 183 with a page). Number 267 in Ukraine in 2024, of 2092.

The power measured by the satellite is low (8.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Derhachi · 2024Petropavlivka · 2024Novomoskovsk · 2022Novomoskovsk · 2024

Burnt area
561ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
7days
27 Aug 2024 – 2 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
27 Aug
2024
Heat detections
18
in a single hotspot: 8 MW
Danger at start
68
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
29MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Aug2 Sept
2 Sept 2024

How it evolved, day by day

1 Sept 2024 · 44 MW · 12 2 Sept 2024 · 13 MW · 6
1 Sept 2 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
53km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 22 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.8 mm on 9 Sept.

This area had burned before

51% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 288 ha in 2022.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.4% of the area of London (5.6 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Novomoskovsk Новомосковський район 73,224 inhabitants · 6.4 km from the centre where it started
    560 ha reached on 1 Sept
    0.3 %

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

  • Other natural land53 %
  • Agricultural areas45 %
  • Artificial surfaces2.2 %

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)

Started with Extreme FWI: 28 % of the area in Ukraine

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
27 Aug 32.4 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
28 Aug 34.2 °C 21 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
29 Aug 34.0 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
30 Aug 32.8 °C 15 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 90
31 Aug 32.4 °C 17 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 86
1 Sept 32.5 °C 21 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
2 Sept 33.3 °C 19 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 83
3 Sept after 27.6 °C 30 % 49 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 68
4 Sept after 28.8 °C 19 % 43 km/h 0.3 mm Extreme 62
5 Sept after 30.1 °C 20 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
6 Sept after 28.2 °C 19 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
7 Sept after 26.3 °C 16 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
8 Sept after 26.7 °C 16 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
9 Sept after 25.1 °C 27 % 39 km/h 4.8 mm Moderate 12

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 68.5, a minimum humidity of 24% and 22 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2020: 23.

FWI at the start 68.5
Minimum humidity 24 %
Days without rain 22
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Derhachi fire, September 2024
329 ha 1 day FWI 67.1 Min. humidity 22 % 187 km away, in 2024

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

1 day
median duration
197 ha
median area
0 %
went past 1,000 ha
3.2 mm
rain at the end (median; 19 of 23 had it)

It was 2.8 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 7 days, against 1 day.

Only 1 of its 23 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 4 of 23, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.2 mm.

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

4.8 mmfirst rain
9 Sept7 days after it ended
53km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 2 Sept, and on 9 Sept 4.8 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 19 of 23, with a median of 3.2 mm.

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 2020.
  • 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.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Aug 2024
After · 9 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 27 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 16 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak16 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1060 µg/m³
Optical depth0.47
25 Aug27 Aug29 Aug31 Aug
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 · 18Every 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 Novomoskovsk fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 August 2024 to 2 September 2024 (7 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 August 2024 to 29 August 2024.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 561 hectares (5.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Novomoskovsk (560 ha, 0.3 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Novomoskovsk and came within 6.4 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 34.2 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 90, class Very 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2020 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 23. Their median duration was 1 day and their median area 197 ha; 0 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 1 of its 23 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 4 of 23, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.2 mm.

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 With cross-checks and a citable version

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 27 August 2024 to 29 August 2024. 18 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.