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Orzhytsia fire, 27 March 2021 Оржицький район · Semenivka, Orzhytsia

Out · last detection 28 Mar 2021, 10:52 UTC

The fire started on 27 March 2021 in Orzhytsia, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,388 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 3th largest in Poltava Oblast since 2016 (of 45 with a page). Number 4 in Ukraine in 2021, of 18.

The power measured by the satellite is low (7.0 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
1,388ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
27 Mar 2021 – 29 Mar 2021
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
27 Mar
2021
Heat detections
10
in a single hotspot: 7 MW
Danger at start
1
Very low · FWI index
Energy released
29MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Mar 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Mar29 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

2728

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

The weather it burned in

14°high
35km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.6 mm on 2 Apr.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Semenivka Семенівський район 23,914 inhabitants · 24.6 km from the town
    720 ha
    0.4 %
  2. Orzhytsia Оржицький район 22,921 inhabitants · 29.2 km from the town where it started
    668 ha reached on 27 Mar
    0.6 %

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

  • Other natural land54 %
  • Mixed forest37 %
  • Agricultural areas9.2 %

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)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
27 Mar 12.8 °C 42 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 1
28 Mar 14.4 °C 43 % 22 km/h 0.4 mm Very low 2
29 Mar 13.1 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
30 Mar after 11.2 °C 36 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
31 Mar after 11.7 °C 40 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
1 Apr after 17.5 °C 41 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
2 Apr after 12.2 °C 57 % 43 km/h 2.6 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Mar 2021
After · 5 Apr 2021

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 10Every 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 Orzhytsia fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 27 March 2021 and 29 March 2021: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,388 hectares (13.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Semenivka (720 ha, 0.4 %); Orzhytsia (668 ha, 0.6 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 24.6 km of Semenivka. 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 14.4 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 4, 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.

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.

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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.