How long did the Popasna fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 21 September 2025 and 21 September 2025: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 231 hectares (2.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Popasna (230 ha, 0.1 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire started in Popasna and came within 6.2 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 22.5 °C, humidity dropped to 37 % and gusts hit 22 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 10, class Low.

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 · 2025-09-21 → 2025-09-21

Popasna fire, 21 September 2025 Попаснянський район · Popasna

Out · last measured on 21 Sept 2025

The fire started on 21 September 2025 in Popasna, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 231 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 380th largest in Luhansk Oblast since 2016 (of 909 with a page). Number 539 in Ukraine in 2025, of 1359.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Popasna · 2024 Novoaidar · 2020 Novoaidar · 2020 Novoaidar · 2024

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but not yet its hotspots: NASA publishes the yearly hotspot archive only once the year closes. The page picks it up automatically when it is available.

Burnt area: 231ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 1day; 21 Sept 2025 – 21 Sept 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 21 Sept; 2025
Danger at start: 10; Low · FWI index

The weather it burned in

22°high

22km/h · peak gust

37%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

10% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 23 ha in 2024.

23 ha Popasna fire, April 2024 1,028 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Popasna Попаснянський район 40,204 inhabitants · 6.2 km from the centre where it started

230 ha

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 land47 %
Mixed forest42 %
Agricultural areas8.3 %
Artificial surfaces2.6 %

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)
21 Sept	22.5 °C	37 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
22 Sept after	28.4 °C	29 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
23 Sept after	29.6 °C	24 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
24 Sept after	29.0 °C	23 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
25 Sept after	15.0 °C	30 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
26 Sept after	12.9 °C	35 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
27 Sept after	16.9 °C	27 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
28 Sept after	17.4 °C	28 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
29 Sept after	16.0 °C	31 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
30 Sept after	12.5 °C	32 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
1 Oct after	11.5 °C	30 %	48 km/h	0.3 mm	High 31

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 14 Sept 2025

After · 28 Sept 2025

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 23 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 44 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 20: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak44 µg/m³

Days over the guideline2 days

PM1053 µg/m³

Optical depth0.29

WHO 15

192021222324

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 21 September 2025 and 21 September 2025: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 231 hectares (2.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Popasna (230 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire started in Popasna and came within 6.2 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 22.5 °C, humidity dropped to 37 % and gusts hit 22 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 10, class Low.
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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What do you think is wrong?

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 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.

Where it burned