How long did the Popasna fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 3 September 2023 to 6 September 2023 (4 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 September 2023 to 3 September 2023.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 129 hectares (1.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Popasna (129 ha, 0.1 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire started in Popasna and came within 10.4 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 26.9 °C, humidity dropped to 43 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, class Moderate.

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 · 2023-09-03 → 2023-09-06

Popasna fire, 3 September 2023 Попаснянський район · Popasna

Out · last detection 3 Sept 2023, 11:25 UTC

The fire started on 3 September 2023 in Popasna, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 129 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 706th largest in Luhansk Oblast since 2016 (of 909 with a page). Number 367 in Ukraine in 2023, of 491.

The power measured by the satellite is low (17.1 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: Popasna · 2022 Popasna · 2024 Perevalsk · 2025 Slovianoserbsk · 2025

Burnt area: 129ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 4days; 3 Sept 2023 – 6 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 3 Sept; 2023
Heat detections: 5; in a single hotspot: 17 MW
Danger at start: 20; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 45MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Sept6 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

3 Sept 2023 · 45 MW · 5

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

The weather it burned in

27°high

30km/h · peak gust

43%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

48% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 62 ha in 2022.

62 ha Popasna fire, March 2022 257 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Popasna Попаснянський район 40,204 inhabitants · 10.4 km from the centre where it started

129 ha reached on 3 Sept

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

Other natural land86 %
Mixed forest12 %
Agricultural areas1.5 %

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)
3 Sept	26.9 °C	43 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
4 Sept	27.0 °C	43 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
5 Sept	22.9 °C	48 %	31 km/h	0.1 mm	High 21
6 Sept	26.6 °C	36 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
7 Sept after	23.3 °C	31 %	40 km/h	0.3 mm	High 29
8 Sept after	20.4 °C	33 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
9 Sept after	15.3 °C	45 %	48 km/h	0.6 mm	High 26
10 Sept after	19.8 °C	47 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
11 Sept after	20.9 °C	50 %	30 km/h	0.3 mm	Moderate 20
12 Sept after	21.3 °C	44 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
13 Sept after	20.6 °C	41 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 27 Aug 2023

After · 13 Sept 2023

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 2 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 22 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak22 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1030 µg/m³

Optical depth1.15

WHO 15

123456

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 · 5Every 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 Popasna fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 3 September 2023 to 6 September 2023 (4 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 September 2023 to 3 September 2023.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 129 hectares (1.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Popasna (129 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire started in Popasna and came within 10.4 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 26.9 °C, humidity dropped to 43 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, class Moderate.
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

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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Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

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.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 3 September 2023 to 3 September 2023. 5 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.

Where it burned