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Ratne fire, May 2026 Ратнівський район · Ratne

Out · last measured on 2 May 2026

The fire started on 2 May 2026 in Ratne, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 164 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 36th largest in Volyn Oblast since 2016 (of 71 with a page). Number 569 in Ukraine in 2026, of 984.

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
164ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
2 May 2026 – 2 May 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
2 May
2026
Danger at start
14
Moderate · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

22°high
30km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.8 mm on 7 May.

This area had burned before

87% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 78 ha in 2021, 88 ha in 2024, 140 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 142 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Ratne Ратнівський район 52,193 inhabitants · 46.7 km from the town where it started
    164 ha
    0.1 %

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

  • Other natural land82 %
  • Agricultural areas9.4 %
  • Mixed forest8.8 %

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)
2 May 21.6 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
3 May after 25.6 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
4 May after 27.4 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
5 May after 27.9 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
6 May after 27.9 °C 23 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
7 May after 25.7 °C 38 % 58 km/h 2.8 mm Low 9

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 3 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
PM1012 µg/m³
Optical depth0.35
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Ukraine ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ratne 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 164 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ratne (164 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 46.7 km of Ratne. 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 21.6 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 14, 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.

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.

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.

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.