Polohy fire, 11 July 2024 Пологівський район · Polohy
The fire started on 11 July 2024 in Polohy, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 243 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 154th largest in Zaporizhzhia Oblast since 2016 (of 490 with a page). Number 740 in Ukraine in 2024, of 2092.
The power measured by the satellite is low (0.9 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…
- Burnt area
- 243ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 7days
- 11 Jul 2024 – 17 Jul 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 11 Jul
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 2
- in a single hotspot: 1 MW
- Danger at start
- 45
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 0MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
243 ha reached on 16 Jul0.2 %
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 land42 %
- Agricultural areas38 %
- Mixed forest16 %
- Artificial surfaces4.6 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 Jul | 35.2 °C | 24 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 12 Jul | 34.1 °C | 29 % | 35 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 40 |
| 13 Jul | 32.4 °C | 20 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 14 Jul | 34.9 °C | 23 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 15 Jul | 36.6 °C | 29 % | 42 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 45 |
| 16 Jul | 36.5 °C | 28 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 17 Jul | 37.8 °C | 22 % | 23 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 40 |
| 18 Jul after | 36.9 °C | 26 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 19 Jul after | 34.9 °C | 29 % | 38 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very high 45 |
| 20 Jul after | 32.2 °C | 32 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 21 Jul after | 33.6 °C | 28 % | 18 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 33 |
| 22 Jul after | 29.9 °C | 43 % | 33 km/h | 0.9 mm | High 22 |
| 23 Jul after | 31.3 °C | 34 % | 41 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 29 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 9 July 2024 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
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 · 2Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 807 haPolohy Пологівський район22 July 2026 · 18 days · 17 km away
- 953 haPolohy Пологівський район14 July 2024 · 6 days · 25 km away
- 924 haOrikhiv Оріхівський район8 July 2024 · 11 days · 29 km away
- 704 haOrikhiv Оріхівський район30 June 2024 · 10 days · 30 km away
- 642 haBilmak Більмацький район17 August 2025 · 6 days · 32 km away
- 1,057 haOrikhiv Оріхівський район14 August 2025 · 2 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Polohy fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 July 2024 to 17 July 2024 (7 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 July 2024 to 13 July 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 243 hectares (2.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Polohy (243 ha, 0.2 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Polohy and came within 17.2 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 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, class Very 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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 11 July 2024 to 13 July 2024. 2 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.
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.