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Shakhtarsk fire, 19 August 2024 Шахтарський район · Shakhtarsk

Out · last detection 19 Aug 2024, 10:02 UTC

The fire started on 19 August 2024 in Shakhtarsk, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 329 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 220th largest in Donetsk Oblast since 2016 (of 1004 with a page). Number 526 in Ukraine in 2024, of 2092.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Dobropillia · 2025Perevalsk · 2025Shakhtarsk · 2024Shakhtarsk · 2024

Burnt area
329ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
19 Aug 2024 – 21 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
19 Aug
2024
Heat detections
5
in a single hotspot: 38 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
139MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Aug21 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

19 Aug 2024 · 139 MW · 5

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
41km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 23 Aug.

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 · 19.4 km from the centre where it started
    328 ha reached on 19 Aug
    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

  • Other natural land78 %
  • Mixed forest20 %
  • Agricultural areas1.2 %

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)

Started with Very dry air: 2.5 % of the area in Ukraine

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
19 Aug 33.3 °C 14 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Aug 34.2 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Aug 34.7 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
22 Aug after 35.4 °C 15 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
23 Aug after 33.3 °C 26 % 45 km/h 1.3 mm Very high 39

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 40.6, a minimum humidity of 14% and 13 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 38.

FWI at the start 40.6
Minimum humidity 14 %
Days without rain 13
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Dobropillia fire, August 2025
103 ha 6 days FWI 39.4 Min. humidity 14 % 124 km away, in 2025

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.2 mm on 23 Aug.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

3 days
median duration
179 ha
median area
3 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.8 mm
rain at the end (median; 28 of 38 had it)

It was 1.8 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 3 days, against 3 days.

Only 10 of its 38 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 10 of 38, 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 2.8 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

1.3 mmfirst rain
23 Aug2 days after it ended
41km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 21 Aug, and on 23 Aug 1.3 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 28 of 38, with a median of 2.8 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 · 12 Aug 2024
After · 28 Aug 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 24 August 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
PM1024 µg/m³
Optical depth0.35
17 Aug19 Aug21 Aug23 Aug
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 · 5Every 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?
Copernicus dates it between 19 August 2024 and 21 August 2024: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 329 hectares (3.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Shakhtarsk (328 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Shakhtarsk and came within 19.4 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 34.7 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 38. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 179 ha; 3 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 10 of its 38 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 10 of 38, 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 2.8 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.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 5 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.
  • 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.