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Perevalsk fire, 29 August 2025 Перевальський район · Perevalsk

Out · last detection 29 Aug 2025, 11:13 UTC

The fire started on 29 August 2025 in Perevalsk, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 397 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 223th largest in Luhansk Oblast since 2016 (of 909 with a page). Number 258 in Ukraine in 2025, of 1358.

The power measured by the satellite is low (8.3 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: Svatove · 2024Svatove · 2024Perevalsk · 2024Perevalsk · 2024

Burnt area
397ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
29 Aug 2025 – 31 Aug 2025
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
29 Aug
2025
Heat detections
7
in a single hotspot: 8 MW
Danger at start
54
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
50MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Aug31 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

29 Aug 2025 · 50 MW · 7

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
48km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.5 mm on 2 Sept.

This area had burned before

95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 77 ha in 2022, 377 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 377 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Perevalsk Перевальський район 69,738 inhabitants · 18.1 km from the centre where it started
    397 ha reached on 29 Aug
    0.5 %

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 land83 %
  • Agricultural areas12 %
  • Mixed forest4.8 %

Land cover inside the perimeter as reported by Copernicus EFFIS (outside the Corine Land Cover area).

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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 Very dry air: 3.1 % of the area in Ukraine

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
29 Aug 31.3 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
30 Aug 32.8 °C 15 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 78
31 Aug 33.6 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
1 Sept after 34.5 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.4 mm Extreme 56
2 Sept after 30.0 °C 39 % 29 km/h 5.5 mm High 29

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 53.6, a minimum humidity of 14% and 3 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 47.

FWI at the start 53.6
Minimum humidity 14 %
Days without rain 3
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Svatove fire, August 2024
261 ha 3 days FWI 53.8 Min. humidity 14 % 110 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

3 days
median duration
170 ha
median area
9 %
went past 1,000 ha
3.1 mm
rain at the end (median; 31 of 47 had it)

It was 2.3 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 3 days, against 3 days.

Only 8 of its 47 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 16 of 47, 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 3.1 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

5.5 mmfirst rain
2 Sept2 days after it ended
48km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 31 Aug, and on 2 Sept 5.5 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 31 of 47, with a median of 3.1 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 2016.
  • 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 · 22 Aug 2025
After · 7 Sept 2025

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 1 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 63 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 29: 1.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak63 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1090 µg/m³
Optical depth0.58
27 Aug29 Aug31 Aug2 Sept
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 · 7Every 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 Perevalsk fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 29 August 2025 and 31 August 2025: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 397 hectares (4.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Perevalsk (397 ha, 0.5 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Perevalsk and came within 18.1 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 33.6 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 78, 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 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 47. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 170 ha; 9 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 8 of its 47 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 16 of 47, 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 3.1 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.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 7 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.