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Popasna fire, 9 April 2024 Попаснянський район · Popasna

Out · last measured on 9 Apr 2024

The fire started on 9 April 2024 in Popasna, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 350 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 252th largest in Luhansk Oblast since 2016 (of 909 with a page). Number 493 in Ukraine in 2024, of 2092.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Perevalsk · 2025Popasna · 2022Novoaidar · 2025Novoaidar · 2020

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
350ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
9 Apr 2024 – 9 Apr 2024
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
9 Apr
2024
Danger at start
22
High · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

26°high
21km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.0 mm on 15 Apr.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2 ha in 2022.

What happened to each town

  1. Popasna Попаснянський район 40,204 inhabitants · 18.3 km from the centre where it started
    351 ha
    0.2 %

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

  • Agricultural areas87 %
  • Other natural land8.6 %
  • Mixed forest3.9 %

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)
9 Apr 25.8 °C 26 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
10 Apr after 26.4 °C 26 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
11 Apr after 28.6 °C 15 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
12 Apr after 27.3 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.6 mm Very high 38
13 Apr after 22.8 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 Apr after 21.4 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Apr after 21.7 °C 28 % 53 km/h 6.0 mm High 28

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 21.5, a minimum humidity of 26% and 10 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2020: 37.

FWI at the start 21.5
Minimum humidity 26 %
Days without rain 10
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Perevalsk fire, September 2025
149 ha 1 day FWI 21.4 Min. humidity 27 % 49 km away, in 2025

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 10.2 mm on 5 Oct.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
163 ha
median area
8 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.6 mm
rain at the end (median; 33 of 37 had it)

It was 2.1 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 1 day, against 2 days.

Only 8 of its 37 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 4 of 37, 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 2.6 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

6.0 mmfirst rain
15 Apr6 days after it ended
21km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 9 Apr, and on 15 Apr 6.0 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 33 of 37, with a median of 2.6 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 2020.
  • 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 · 2 Apr 2024
After · 16 Apr 2024

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 11 April 2024 the air beside the fire reached 32 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak32 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM1046 µg/m³
Optical depth0.39
7 Apr9 Apr11 Apr
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Ukraine

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Popasna fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 9 April 2024 and 9 April 2024: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 350 hectares (3.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Popasna (351 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Popasna and came within 18.3 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 25.8 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 21 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 22, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2020 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 37. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 163 ha; 8 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 8 of its 37 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 4 of 37, 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 2.6 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. No 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.