Skip to content
worldfires
en
UA · Ukraine · –

Popasna fire, 25 August 2024 Попаснянський район · Popasna

Out · last detection 26 Aug 2024, 09:31 UTC

The fire started on 25 August 2024 in Popasna, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 379 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 234th largest in Luhansk Oblast since 2016 (of 909 with a page). Number 441 in Ukraine in 2024, of 2092.

The power measured by the satellite is low (15.4 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: Kreminna · 2025Popasna · 2025Novoaidar · 2020Novoaidar · 2020

Burnt area
379ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
25 Aug 2024 – 26 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
25 Aug
2024
Heat detections
11
in a single hotspot: 15 MW
Danger at start
57
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
44MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Aug26 Aug
26 Aug 2024

How it evolved, day by day

25 Aug 2024 · 61 MW · 9 26 Aug 2024 · 27 MW · 2
25 Aug 26 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

33°high
35km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 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

  1. Popasna Попаснянський район 40,204 inhabitants · 10.2 km from the centre where it started
    379 ha reached on 25 Aug
    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

  • Other natural land46 %
  • Agricultural areas36 %
  • Mixed forest18 %

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)

Started with Extreme FWI: 29 % of the area in Ukraine

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
25 Aug 33.0 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
26 Aug 33.2 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
27 Aug after 31.9 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
28 Aug after 33.0 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
29 Aug after 31.9 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
30 Aug after 31.6 °C 15 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 84
31 Aug after 33.2 °C 18 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
1 Sept after 30.6 °C 18 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 85
2 Sept after 31.3 °C 21 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 99
3 Sept after 25.5 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
4 Sept after 29.1 °C 12 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
5 Sept after 28.5 °C 25 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 57.2, a minimum humidity of 19% and 12 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2020: 28.

FWI at the start 57.2
Minimum humidity 19 %
Days without rain 12
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Kreminna fire, August 2025
130 ha 2 days FWI 57.2 Min. humidity 18 % 41 km away, in 2025

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 5.8 mm on 23 Aug.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
170 ha
median area
7 %
went past 1,000 ha
6.8 mm
rain at the end (median; 28 of 28 had it)

It was 2.2 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 2 days, against 2 days.

Only 7 of its 28 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. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 6.8 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

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
35km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 26 Aug, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 28 of 28, with a median of 6.8 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 · 18 Aug 2024
After · 2 Sept 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 26 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 17 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak17 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1027 µg/m³
Optical depth0.39
23 Aug25 Aug27 Aug29 Aug
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 · 11Every 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 Popasna fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 25 August 2024 and 26 August 2024: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 379 hectares (3.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Popasna (379 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Popasna and came within 10.2 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 33.2 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, class Extreme.
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: 28. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 170 ha; 7 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 7 of its 28 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. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 6.8 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. 11 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.