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UA · Ukraine ·

Olevsk fire, 15 March 2022 Олевський район · Olevsk

Out · last measured on 15 Mar 2022

The fire started on 15 March 2022 in Olevsk, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 155 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 123th largest in Zhytomyr Oblast since 2016 (of 179 with a page). Number 343 in Ukraine in 2022, of 531.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Yemilchyne · 2025Rivne · 2025Olevsk · 2020Olevsk · 2020

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
155ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
15 Mar 2022 – 15 Mar 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
15 Mar
2022
Danger at start
2
Very low · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

11°high
19km/h · peak gust
35%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

15% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 23 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Olevsk Олевський район 41,423 inhabitants · 6.3 km from the centre where it started
    154 ha
    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

  • Mixed forest48 %
  • Agricultural areas36 %
  • Other natural land16 %

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)
15 Mar 10.8 °C 35 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
16 Mar after 5.7 °C 34 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Low 5
17 Mar after 3.2 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
18 Mar after 4.1 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
19 Mar after 6.6 °C 26 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
20 Mar after 10.0 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
21 Mar after 13.9 °C 36 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
22 Mar after 17.6 °C 29 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
23 Mar after 17.6 °C 27 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
24 Mar after 8.4 °C 46 % 55 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 14
25 Mar after 11.8 °C 36 % 42 km/h 0.2 mm Very low 4

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 2.5, a minimum humidity of 35% and 6 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2020: 20.

FWI at the start 2.5
Minimum humidity 35 %
Days without rain 6
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Yemilchyne fire, April 2025
169 ha 2 days FWI 4.3 Min. humidity 35 % 13 km away, in 2025

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 6.4 mm on 6 Apr.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
173 ha
median area
0 %
went past 1,000 ha
4.6 mm
rain at the end (median; 18 of 20 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (155 ha against a median of 173 ha) and lasted 1 day, against 2 days.

In 2 of 20, 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 4.6 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

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
19km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 15 Mar, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 18 of 20, with a median of 4.6 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 · 8 Mar 2022
After · 22 Mar 2022

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 16 March 2022 the air beside the fire reached 13 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak13 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1014 µg/m³
13 Mar15 Mar17 Mar
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 Olevsk fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 15 March 2022 and 15 March 2022: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 155 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Olevsk (154 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Olevsk and came within 6.3 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 10.8 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 19 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 2, 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.
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: 20. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 173 ha; 0 % went past 1,000 ha. In 2 of 20, 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 4.6 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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 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.