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Poliske fire, 16 April 2020 Поліський район · Poliske, Ivankiv

Out · last detection 19 Apr 2020, 23:36 UTC

The fire started on 16 April 2020 in Poliske, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,777 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 7th largest in Kyiv Oblast since 2016 (of 128 with a page). Number 17 in Ukraine in 2020, of 132.

The power measured by the satellite is low (14.6 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: Ivankiv · 2026Ivankiv · 2020Ivankiv · 2022Ivankiv · 2026

Burnt area
2,777ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
7days
16 Apr 2020 – 22 Apr 2020
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
16 Apr
2020
Heat detections
38
in a single hotspot: 15 MW
Danger at start
16
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
32MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Apr22 Apr
19 Apr 2020

How it evolved, day by day

16 Apr 2020 · 1 MW · 1 17 Apr 2020 · 84 MW · 22 18 Apr 2020 · 36 MW · 12 19 Apr 2020 · 7 MW · 3
16 Apr 17 Apr 18 Apr 19 Apr

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

The weather it burned in

16°high
51km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.4 mm on 26 Apr.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.8% of the area of London (28 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. Poliske Поліський район 5,622 inhabitants · 32.5 km from the centre where it started
    2,430 ha reached on 16 Apr
    1.5 %
  2. Ivankiv Іванківський район 29,441 inhabitants · 2.9 km from the centre
    339 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

  • Coniferous forest50 %
  • Mixed forest29 %
  • Agricultural areas11 %
  • Other natural land7.4 %
  • Broadleaved forest2.2 %

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)
18 Apr 11.5 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
19 Apr 11.6 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 19
20 Apr 9.4 °C 35 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
21 Apr 10.1 °C 33 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
22 Apr 15.6 °C 29 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
23 Apr after 17.8 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
24 Apr after 18.7 °C 22 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
25 Apr after 19.2 °C 29 % 43 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 20
26 Apr after 12.5 °C 31 % 58 km/h 3.4 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Apr 2020
After · 29 Apr 2020

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 18 April 2020 the air beside the fire reached 39 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak39 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1044 µg/m³
141516171819202122232425
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 · 38Every 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 Poliske fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 April 2020 to 22 April 2020 (7 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 April 2020 to 22 April 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,777 hectares (27.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Poliske (2,430 ha, 1.5 %); Ivankiv (339 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire came within 2.9 km of the centre of Ivankiv, the closest of the areas it touched. 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 15.6 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 23, class High.
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 · 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

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 18 April 2020 to 22 April 2020. 38 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.