How long did the Polohy fire last?

The official perimeter only gives the start date (12 August 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 24 August 2026 (17 days from 8 August 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 336 hectares (3.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bilmak (278 ha, 0.2 %); Polohy (59 ha, 0.0 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire came within 16.3 km of the centre of Bilmak, 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 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.

UA · Ukraine · 2026-08-08 → 2026-08-24

Polohy fire, 8 August 2026 Пологівський район · Bilmak, Polohy

Out · last detection 21 Aug 2026, 11:28 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2026 in Polohy, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 336 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 89th largest in Zaporizhzhia Oblast since 2016 (of 490 with a page). Number 240 in Ukraine in 2026, of 984.

The power measured by the satellite is low (15.9 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…

Suggestions: Bilmak · 2024 Bilmak · 2025 Bilmak · 2025 Huliaipole · 2024

Burnt area: 336ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: ≈ 17days; 8 Aug 2026 – 24 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; districts
Started on: 8 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 22; in a single hotspot: 16 MW
Danger at start: 35; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 23MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug24 Aug

Play back 21 Aug 2026

How it evolved, day by day

8 Aug 12 Aug 13 Aug 20 Aug 21 Aug

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

43km/h · peak gust

19%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 27 Aug.

This area had burned before

75% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 252 ha in 2024.

252 ha Bilmak fire, July 2024 505 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Bilmak Більмацький район 21,359 inhabitants · 16.3 km from the centre

278 ha reached on 8 Aug

0.2 %
Polohy Пологівський район 39,115 inhabitants · 19.0 km from the centre where it started

59 ha reached on 12 Aug

0.0 %

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 land63 %
Agricultural areas32 %
Mixed forest5.0 %

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 area0.46 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.46 hectares of 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)

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Rain	Danger (FWI)
8 Aug	34.3 °C	27 %	35 km/h	0.5 mm	High 35
9 Aug	32.1 °C	41 %	40 km/h	0.9 mm	High 24
10 Aug	31.2 °C	39 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
11 Aug	33.5 °C	34 %	26 km/h	1.3 mm	Moderate 20
12 Aug	30.0 °C	33 %	38 km/h	2.0 mm	Moderate 18
13 Aug	24.2 °C	27 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
14 Aug	23.9 °C	27 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
15 Aug	25.0 °C	29 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
16 Aug	27.8 °C	27 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
17 Aug	30.3 °C	19 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
18 Aug	32.6 °C	20 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
19 Aug	27.5 °C	42 %	35 km/h	0.2 mm	High 30
20 Aug	28.7 °C	30 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
21 Aug	31.5 °C	27 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
22 Aug	34.2 °C	19 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
23 Aug	34.5 °C	21 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
24 Aug	28.1 °C	25 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
25 Aug after	28.0 °C	24 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
26 Aug after	28.0 °C	29 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
27 Aug after	24.2 °C	39 %	34 km/h	1.4 mm	Moderate 19

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 1 Aug 2026

After · 31 Aug 2026

Before After

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 12 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak20 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1023 µg/m³

Optical depth0.36

WHO 15

101112131415161718

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 · 22Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Ukraine ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Polohy fire last?: The official perimeter only gives the start date (12 August 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 24 August 2026 (17 days from 8 August 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 336 hectares (3.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bilmak (278 ha, 0.2 %); Polohy (59 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire came within 16.3 km of the centre of Bilmak, 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 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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 ›

ДСНС · State Emergency Service ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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

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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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What really happened?

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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.

How we know this

Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 22 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.

Where it burned