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Oleshky fire, 1 August 2026 Олешківський район · Oleshky

Out · last detection 23 Aug 2026, 10:49 UTC

The fire started on 1 August 2026 in Oleshky, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 104 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1069th largest in Kherson Oblast since 2016 (of 1102 with a page). Number 938 in Ukraine in 2026, of 984.

The power measured by the satellite is low (13.8 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: Kakhovka · 2023Beryslav · 2023Oleshky · 2025Oleshky · 2023

Burnt area
104ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
≈ 25days
1 Aug 2026 – 25 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
1 Aug
2026
Heat detections
17
in a single hotspot: 14 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Average daily power
22MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Aug25 Aug
23 Aug 2026

How it evolved, day by day

5 Aug 2026 · 39 MW · 5 6 Aug 2026 · 21 MW · 3 8 Aug 2026 · 16 MW · 2 16 Aug 2026 · 31 MW · 6 23 Aug 2026 · 5 MW · 1
5 Aug 6 Aug 8 Aug 16 Aug 23 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
50km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.8 mm on 27 Aug.

This area had burned before

99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 63 ha in 2023, 81 ha in 2024, 97 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 103 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Oleshky Олешківський район 70,367 inhabitants · 14.1 km from the centre where it started
    104 ha reached on 5 Aug
    0.0 %

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

  • Mixed forest90 %
  • Other natural land7.0 %
  • Coniferous forest3.0 %

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)
1 Aug 31.0 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Aug 33.0 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Aug 34.0 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Aug 35.2 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 50
5 Aug 34.8 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Aug 36.3 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Aug 36.3 °C 23 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
8 Aug 34.9 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
9 Aug 31.8 °C 40 % 44 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 50
10 Aug 33.2 °C 41 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm High 35
11 Aug 34.2 °C 27 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
12 Aug 29.7 °C 31 % 46 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 52
13 Aug 25.9 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Aug 26.6 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
15 Aug 27.0 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Aug 29.0 °C 29 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
17 Aug 30.6 °C 28 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Aug 31.3 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
19 Aug 24.6 °C 47 % 30 km/h 2.6 mm Low 7
20 Aug 29.5 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Aug 31.4 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
22 Aug 34.7 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Aug 35.0 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
24 Aug 29.9 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
25 Aug 30.4 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Aug after 28.1 °C 38 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
27 Aug after 24.6 °C 47 % 31 km/h 2.8 mm High 32

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 35.6, a minimum humidity of 29% and 3 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2022: 34.

FWI at the start 35.6
Minimum humidity 29 %
Days without rain 3
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Kakhovka fire, September 2023
187 ha 3 days FWI 37.2 Min. humidity 29 % 33 km away, in 2023

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

3 days
median duration
238 ha
median area
12 %
went past 1,000 ha
4.1 mm
rain at the end (median; 25 of 34 had it)

It stayed below its twins: 104 ha against a median of 238 ha. It lasted 25 days, against 3 days.

In 9 of 34, 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 4.1 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

2.8 mmfirst rain
27 Aug2 days after it ended
50km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 25 Aug, and on 27 Aug 2.8 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 25 of 34, with a median of 4.1 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 2022.
  • 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 · 25 Jul 2026
After · 1 Sept 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 5 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 15 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak15 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1020 µg/m³
Optical depth0.47
3 Aug5 Aug7 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 · 17Every 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 Oleshky fire last?
The official perimeter only gives the start date (5 August 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 25 August 2026 (25 days from 1 August 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 104 hectares (1.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Oleshky (104 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Oleshky and came within 14.1 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 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2022 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 34. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 238 ha; 12 % went past 1,000 ha. In 9 of 34, 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 4.1 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.
  • The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 17 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.