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Popasna fire, 18 September 2026 Попаснянський район · Popasna

Out · last detection 18 Sept 2026, 11:23 UTC

The fire started on 18 September 2026 in Popasna, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 133 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 680th largest in Luhansk Oblast since 2016 (of 909 with a page). Number 716 in Ukraine in 2026, of 984.

The power measured by the satellite is low (29.0 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: Shakhtarsk · 2025Kreminna · 2023Popasna · 2024Popasna · 2024

Burnt area
133ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
≈ 1day
18 Sept 2026 – 18 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
18 Sept
2026
Heat detections
1
in a single hotspot: 29 MW
Danger at start
16
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
29MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Sept18 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

18 Sept 2026 · 29 MW · 1

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

The weather it burned in

24°high
18km/h · peak gust
33%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 22 Sept.

This area had burned before

53% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 70 ha in 2024.

What happened to each town

  1. Popasna Попаснянський район 40,204 inhabitants · 7.5 km from the centre where it started
    133 ha reached on 18 Sept
    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

  • Agricultural areas80 %
  • Other natural land16 %
  • Mixed forest3.8 %

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)
18 Sept 23.5 °C 33 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
19 Sept after 24.5 °C 35 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
20 Sept after 26.4 °C 32 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
21 Sept after 25.7 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
22 Sept after 23.1 °C 55 % 35 km/h 1.2 mm Low 9

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 15.6, a minimum humidity of 33% and 2 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 49.

FWI at the start 15.6
Minimum humidity 33 %
Days without rain 2
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Shakhtarsk fire, June 2025
538 ha 3 days FWI 16.9 Min. humidity 34 % 56 km away, in 2025

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

1 day
median duration
180 ha
median area
4 %
went past 1,000 ha
3.0 mm
rain at the end (median; 38 of 49 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (133 ha against a median of 180 ha) and lasted 1 day, against 1 day.

In 11 of 49, 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 3.0 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

1.2 mmfirst rain
22 Sept4 days after it ended
18km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 18 Sept, and on 22 Sept 1.2 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 38 of 49, with a median of 3.0 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 · 11 Sept 2026
After · 25 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 18 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 14 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak14 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1020 µg/m³
Optical depth0.39
16 Sept18 Sept20 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 · 1Every 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 (18 September 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 18 September 2026 (1 day from 18 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 133 hectares (1.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Popasna (133 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Popasna and came within 7.5 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 23.5 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 18 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 16, class Moderate.
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: 49. Their median duration was 1 day and their median area 180 ha; 4 % went past 1,000 ha. In 11 of 49, 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 3.0 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. One Suomi-NPP VIIRS detection 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.