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Popasna fire, 24 August 2026 Попаснянський район · Popasna

Out · last measured on 24 Aug 2026

The fire started on 24 August 2026 in Popasna, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 322 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 275th largest in Luhansk Oblast since 2016 (of 909 with a page). Number 262 in Ukraine in 2026, of 984.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Lutuhyne · 2024Antratsyt · 2023Popasna · 2025Novoaidar · 2020

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
322ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
24 Aug 2026 – 24 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
24 Aug
2026
Danger at start
55
Extreme · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

27°high
44km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

30% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4 ha in 2022, 9 ha in 2024, 86 ha in 2025.

What happened to each town

  1. Popasna Попаснянський район 40,204 inhabitants · 16.7 km from the centre where it started
    322 ha reached on 9 Sept
    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 areas85 %
  • Mixed forest7.5 %
  • Other natural land7.2 %

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 area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable 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)

Started with Extreme FWI: 28 % of the area in Ukraine

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
24 Aug 27.1 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
25 Aug after 26.2 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Aug after 27.8 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
27 Aug after 20.8 °C 54 % 32 km/h 0.3 mm High 28
28 Aug after 24.6 °C 46 % 50 km/h 0.7 mm High 31
29 Aug after 28.2 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Aug after 27.1 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Aug after 27.3 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
1 Sept after 28.6 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
2 Sept after 29.9 °C 20 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
3 Sept after 26.9 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 54.8, a minimum humidity of 27% and 11 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 15.

FWI at the start 54.8
Minimum humidity 27 %
Days without rain 11
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Lutuhyne fire, September 2024
114 ha 2 days FWI 54.0 Min. humidity 27 % 42 km away, in 2024

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
305 ha
median area
7 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.4 mm
rain at the end (median; 11 of 15 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (322 ha against a median of 305 ha) and lasted 1 day, against 2 days.

In 4 of 15, 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 2.4 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
44km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 24 Aug, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 11 of 15, with a median of 2.4 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 2016.
  • 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 · 17 Aug 2026
After · 31 Aug 2026

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 22 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
PM1027 µg/m³
Optical depth0.74
22 Aug24 Aug26 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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Ukraine

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Popasna fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 24 August 2026 and 24 August 2026: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 322 hectares (3.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Popasna (322 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Popasna and came within 16.7 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 27.1 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 15. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 305 ha; 7 % went past 1,000 ha. In 4 of 15, 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 2.4 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.
  • 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.