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Popasna fire, 3 September 2026 Попаснянський район · Popasna

Out · last detection 3 Sept 2026, 10:45 UTC

The fire started on 3 September 2026 in Popasna, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 774 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 94th largest in Luhansk Oblast since 2016 (of 909 with a page). Number 70 in Ukraine in 2026, of 984.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Popasna · 2025Marinka · 2026Popasna · 2024Popasna · 2024

Burnt area
774ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
≈ 9days
3 Sept 2026 – 11 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
3 Sept
2026
Heat detections
19
in a single hotspot: 79 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
317MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Sept11 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

3 Sept 2026 · 317 MW · 19

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
52km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 14 Sept.

This area had burned before

60% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 68 ha in 2023, 394 ha in 2024, 25 ha in 2025.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.5% of the area of London (7.7 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Popasna Попаснянський район 40,204 inhabitants · 9.3 km from the centre where it started
    773 ha reached on 3 Sept
    0.4 %

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 areas60 %
  • Other natural land35 %
  • Mixed forest5.3 %

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)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
3 Sept 26.6 °C 36 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Sept 27.0 °C 32 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
5 Sept 29.7 °C 23 % 52 km/h 0.6 mm Extreme 66
6 Sept 22.3 °C 37 % 32 km/h 5.7 mm Low 6
7 Sept 18.9 °C 46 % 45 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 16
8 Sept 20.6 °C 34 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Sept 22.8 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Sept 28.6 °C 21 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
11 Sept 28.2 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Sept after 26.7 °C 34 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
13 Sept after 30.8 °C 29 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Sept after 25.4 °C 51 % 26 km/h 1.4 mm Moderate 14

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 39.1, a minimum humidity of 36% and 14 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 22.

FWI at the start 39.1
Minimum humidity 36 %
Days without rain 14
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Popasna fire, July 2025
497 ha 3 days FWI 40.1 Min. humidity 36 % 25 km away, in 2025

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.9 mm on 18 Jul.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

4 days
median duration
194 ha
median area
9 %
went past 1,000 ha
5.2 mm
rain at the end (median; 14 of 22 had it)

It was 4.0 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 9 days, against 4 days.

Only 4 of its 22 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 8 of 22, 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 5.2 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

1.4 mmfirst rain
14 Sept3 days after it ended
52km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 11 Sept, and on 14 Sept 1.4 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 14 of 22, with a median of 5.2 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 · 27 Aug 2026
After · 18 Sept 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 2 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 16 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak16 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1035 µg/m³
Optical depth0.31
1 Sept3 Sept5 Sept
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 · 19Every 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?
The official perimeter only gives the start date (3 September 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 11 September 2026 (9 days from 3 September 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 774 hectares (7.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Popasna (773 ha, 0.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Popasna and came within 9.3 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 29.7 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 66, 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: 22. Their median duration was 4 days and their median area 194 ha; 9 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 4 of its 22 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 8 of 22, 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 5.2 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.
  • The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 19 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.