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Putyvl fire, May 2026 Путивльський район · Putyvl

Out · last detection 2 May 2026, 11:27 UTC

The fire started on 2 May 2026 in Putyvl, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 250 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 46th largest in Sumy Oblast since 2016 (of 129 with a page). Number 353 in Ukraine in 2026, of 984.

The power measured by the satellite is low (23.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
250ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
2 May 2026 – 2 May 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
2 May
2026
Heat detections
7
in a single hotspot: 24 MW
Danger at start
3
Very low · FWI index
Energy released
111MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 May2 May

How it evolved, day by day

2

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
59km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 2 Sept.

This area had burned before

70% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 183 ha in 2024.

What happened to each town

  1. Putyvl Путивльський район 15.0 km from the town where it started
    249 ha reached on 2 May
    0.2 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

  • Agricultural areas80 %
  • Mixed forest12 %
  • Other natural land8.0 %

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)
9 Jul after 19.8 °C 56 % 13 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
10 Jul after 15.8 °C 83 % 14 km/h 11.9 mm Very low 0
11 Jul after 19.8 °C 68 % 14 km/h 8.2 mm Very low 0
12 Jul after 20.6 °C 59 % 22 km/h 4.5 mm Very low 0
13 Jul after 23.0 °C 74 % 25 km/h 6.1 mm Very low 0
14 Jul after 24.0 °C 62 % 18 km/h 3.1 mm Very low 0
15 Jul after 25.5 °C 57 % 20 km/h 4.6 mm Very low 0
16 Jul after 24.1 °C 53 % 20 km/h 0.2 mm Very low 1
17 Jul after 19.6 °C 44 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
18 Jul after 23.0 °C 45 % 7 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
19 Jul after 24.6 °C 43 % 10 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
20 Jul after 26.0 °C 60 % 18 km/h 2.6 mm Very low 1
21 Jul after 22.5 °C 59 % 16 km/h 1.4 mm Very low 1
22 Jul after 21.5 °C 55 % 23 km/h 1.1 mm Very low 3
23 Jul after 19.5 °C 58 % 10 km/h 0.2 mm Very low 3
24 Jul after 21.0 °C 54 % 17 km/h 0.6 mm Low 5
25 Jul after 23.5 °C 48 % 12 km/h 1.9 mm Very low 2
26 Jul after 24.1 °C 44 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
27 Jul after 27.0 °C 37 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
28 Jul after 21.4 °C 50 % 44 km/h 10.5 mm Very low 1
29 Jul after 21.4 °C 48 % 49 km/h 1.5 mm Very low 2
30 Jul after 22.8 °C 45 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
31 Jul after 25.4 °C 44 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
1 Aug after 27.8 °C 41 % 9 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
2 Aug after 30.0 °C 38 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
3 Aug after 31.5 °C 35 % 9 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
4 Aug after 31.6 °C 40 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
5 Aug after 32.2 °C 41 % 11 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
6 Aug after 35.5 °C 36 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
7 Aug after 34.8 °C 36 % 34 km/h 2.8 mm Low 10
8 Aug after 28.4 °C 56 % 31 km/h 2.6 mm Very low 4
9 Aug after 25.8 °C 41 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm Low 10
10 Aug after 26.9 °C 37 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
11 Aug after 29.6 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
12 Aug after 22.7 °C 36 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
13 Aug after 21.9 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
14 Aug after 21.8 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
15 Aug after 24.5 °C 38 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
16 Aug after 29.3 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
17 Aug after 31.1 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm High 23
18 Aug after 30.7 °C 28 % 59 km/h 3.0 mm Moderate 18
19 Aug after 22.3 °C 46 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
20 Aug after 27.5 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
21 Aug after 32.8 °C 36 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
22 Aug after 32.5 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Aug after 24.7 °C 41 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
24 Aug after 21.9 °C 40 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
25 Aug after 22.7 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
26 Aug after 22.4 °C 41 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
27 Aug after 21.8 °C 43 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
28 Aug after 21.2 °C 43 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
29 Aug after 24.9 °C 40 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
30 Aug after 27.2 °C 35 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
31 Aug after 28.0 °C 45 % 19 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 20
1 Sept after 28.0 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.3 mm High 29
2 Sept after 23.9 °C 43 % 32 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 15

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Apr 2026
After · 9 May 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 5 May 2026 the air beside the fire reached 8 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak8 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1010 µg/m³
Optical depth0.42
3012345
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 · 7Every 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 Putyvl fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 2 May 2026 and 2 May 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 250 hectares (2.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Putyvl (249 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 15.0 km of Putyvl. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class High.
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

Satellite cross-check

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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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.

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.