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Shakhtarsk fire, 16 August 2026 Шахтарський район · Shakhtarsk

Out · last detection 16 Aug 2026, 11:21 UTC

The fire started on 16 August 2026 in Shakhtarsk, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 136 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 693th largest in Donetsk Oblast since 2016 (of 1004 with a page). Number 700 in Ukraine in 2026, of 984.

The power measured by the satellite is low (4.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Bakhmut · 2024Bakhmut · 2022Antratsyt · 2024Shakhtarsk · 2024

Burnt area
136ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
≈ 6days
16 Aug 2026 – 21 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
16 Aug
2026
Heat detections
4
in a single hotspot: 4 MW
Danger at start
18
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
13MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Aug21 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

16 Aug 2026 · 13 MW · 4

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
32km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

55% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 23 ha in 2024, 64 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 75 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Shakhtarsk Шахтарський район 18,952 inhabitants · 24.6 km from the centre where it started
    136 ha reached on 16 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

  • Agricultural areas49 %
  • Other natural land48 %
  • Mixed forest3.0 %

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)
16 Aug 26.9 °C 29 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
17 Aug 29.3 °C 24 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
18 Aug 31.5 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
19 Aug 28.8 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.6 mm High 25
20 Aug 27.2 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.3 mm High 22
21 Aug 30.8 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
22 Aug after 33.5 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Aug after 33.0 °C 17 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
24 Aug after 26.6 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
25 Aug after 25.9 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
26 Aug after 27.3 °C 27 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
27 Aug after 22.7 °C 46 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
28 Aug after 24.6 °C 40 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
29 Aug after 28.0 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
30 Aug after 26.7 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
31 Aug after 26.9 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Aug 2026
After · 28 Aug 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 16 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 36 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak36 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1043 µg/m³
Optical depth0.63
151617181920
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 · 4Every 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?
The official perimeter only gives the start date (17 August 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 21 August 2026 (6 days from 16 August 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 136 hectares (1.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Shakhtarsk (136 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Shakhtarsk and came within 24.6 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 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, 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 · 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

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.
  • The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 4 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.