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Rivne fire, March 2020 Рівненський район · Rivne

Out · last detection 29 Mar 2020, 11:17 UTC

The fire started on 29 March 2020 in Rivne, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 759 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 22th largest in Rivne Oblast since 2016 (of 167 with a page). Number 47 in Ukraine in 2020, of 132.

Burnt area
759ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
29 Mar 2020 – 1 Apr 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
29 Mar
2020
Heat detections
22
in a single hotspot: 112 MW
Danger at start
6
Low · FWI index
Energy released
321MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Mar1 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

29

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

The weather it burned in

18°high
50km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.6 mm on 13 Apr.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Rivne Рівненський район 89,776 inhabitants · 31.1 km from the town where it started
    760 ha reached on 28 Mar
    0.4 %

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

  • Mixed forest44 %
  • Broadleaved forest26 %
  • Agricultural areas26 %
  • Other natural land4.4 %

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)
28 Mar 16.0 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
29 Mar 15.9 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
30 Mar 6.9 °C 58 % 48 km/h 0.8 mm Very low 4
31 Mar 4.9 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
1 Apr 7.0 °C 26 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
2 Apr after 10.3 °C 32 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
3 Apr after 14.0 °C 28 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
4 Apr after 10.6 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
5 Apr after 11.2 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
6 Apr after 14.0 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
7 Apr after 18.2 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
8 Apr after 18.6 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
9 Apr after 21.4 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
10 Apr after 12.6 °C 22 % 54 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 19
11 Apr after 13.0 °C 24 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
12 Apr after 15.1 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
13 Apr after 20.7 °C 28 % 66 km/h 3.6 mm Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Mar 2020
After · 8 Apr 2020

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 8 April 2020 the air beside the fire reached 30 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak30 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1036 µg/m³
26272829303112345678910
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 · 22Every 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 Rivne fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 29 March 2020 and 1 April 2020: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 759 hectares (7.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Rivne (760 ha, 0.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 31.1 km of Rivne. 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 18.2 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 12, 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
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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.