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UA · Ukraine · –

Shakhtarsk fire, 9 July 2024 Шахтарський район · Shakhtarsk, Amvrosiivka

Out · last detection 10 Jul 2024, 23:30 UTC

The fire started on 9 July 2024 in Shakhtarsk, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 156 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 588th largest in Donetsk Oblast since 2016 (of 1004 with a page). Number 1276 in Ukraine in 2024, of 2092.

Burnt area
156ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
9 Jul 2024 – 11 Jul 2024
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
9 Jul
2024
Heat detections
10
in a single hotspot: 40 MW
Danger at start
59
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
127MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Jul11 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

10 Jul 2024 · 127 MW · 10

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
43km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 19 Jul.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Shakhtarsk Шахтарський район 18,952 inhabitants · 20.9 km from the centre where it started
    135 ha reached on 10 Jul
    0.1 %
  2. Amvrosiivka Донецький район 1,503,400 inhabitants · 6.7 km from the centre
    20 ha reached on 10 Jul
    0.0 %

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

  • Other natural land59 %
  • Agricultural areas39 %
  • Mixed forest1.3 %

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 35.5 °C 23 % 43 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 59
10 Jul 34.2 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
11 Jul 34.6 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
12 Jul after 33.7 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
13 Jul after 32.0 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
14 Jul after 34.5 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
15 Jul after 36.5 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
16 Jul after 36.9 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
17 Jul after 37.7 °C 22 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Jul after 37.2 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
19 Jul after 36.4 °C 28 % 36 km/h 1.1 mm Extreme 55

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 58.6, a minimum humidity of 23% and 18 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2020: 54.

FWI at the start 58.6
Minimum humidity 23 %
Days without rain 18
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Kostiantynivka fire, September 2024
102 ha 1 day FWI 58.2 Min. humidity 23 % 72 km away, in 2024

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.1 mm on 7 Oct.

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
186 ha
median area
9 %
went past 1,000 ha
3.4 mm
rain at the end (median; 44 of 54 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (156 ha against a median of 186 ha) and lasted 3 days, against 2 days.

In 10 of 54, 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 3.4 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

1.1 mmfirst rain
19 Jul8 days after it ended
43km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 11 Jul, and on 19 Jul 1.1 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 44 of 54, with a median of 3.4 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 2020.
  • 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 · 2 Jul 2024
After · 18 Jul 2024

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 July 2024 the air beside the fire reached 12 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak12 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1016 µg/m³
Optical depth0.30
8 Jul10 Jul12 Jul14 Jul
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 · 10Every 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 Shakhtarsk fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 9 July 2024 to 11 July 2024 (3 days). The perimeter dates it from 10 July 2024 to 11 July 2024.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 156 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Shakhtarsk (135 ha, 0.1 %); Amvrosiivka (20 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire came within 6.7 km of the centre of Amvrosiivka, the closest of the areas it touched. 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 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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 2020 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 54. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 186 ha; 9 % went past 1,000 ha. In 10 of 54, 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 3.4 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Start date: 10 July 2024 → 9 July 2024.

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.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 10 July 2024 to 11 July 2024. 10 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.

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.