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Shakhtarsk fire, 20 August 2026 Шахтарський район · Shakhtarsk

Out · last detection 21 Aug 2026, 00:01 UTC

The fire started on 20 August 2026 in Shakhtarsk, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 185 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 466th largest in Donetsk Oblast since 2016 (of 1004 with a page). Number 498 in Ukraine in 2026, of 984.

The power measured by the satellite is low (1.1 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: Kostiantynivka · 2025Kostiantynivka · 2026Bakhmut · 2025Bakhmut · 2022

Burnt area
185ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
≈ 6days
20 Aug 2026 – 25 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
20 Aug
2026
Heat detections
3
in a single hotspot: 1 MW
Danger at start
25
High · FWI index
Average daily power
2MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Aug25 Aug
21 Aug 2026

How it evolved, day by day

20 Aug 2026 · 2 MW · 2 21 Aug 2026 · 1 MW · 1
20 Aug 21 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
44km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

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 · 53.5 km from the centre where it started
    185 ha reached on 20 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 land89 %
  • Mixed forest8.2 %
  • Agricultural areas3.3 %

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)
20 Aug 27.9 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
21 Aug 31.3 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
22 Aug 33.9 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
23 Aug 33.5 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
24 Aug 26.9 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
25 Aug 26.4 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Aug after 27.4 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Aug after 22.5 °C 48 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 37
28 Aug after 24.6 °C 41 % 52 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 46
29 Aug after 28.5 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
30 Aug after 27.3 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 Aug after 27.4 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
1 Sept after 28.6 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
2 Sept after 29.6 °C 19 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Sept after 27.3 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Sept after 27.2 °C 31 % 19 km/h 0.2 mm High 34

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 25.4, a minimum humidity of 27% and rain the day before. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2020: 34.

FWI at the start 25.4
Minimum humidity 27 %
Days without rain 0
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Kostiantynivka fire, July 2025
236 ha 6 days FWI 25.4 Min. humidity 27 % 39 km away, in 2025

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 6.8 mm on 3 Aug.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
178 ha
median area
0 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.6 mm
rain at the end (median; 30 of 34 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (185 ha against a median of 178 ha) and lasted 6 days, against 2 days.

In 4 of 34, 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 2.6 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

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
44km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 25 Aug, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 30 of 34, with a median of 2.6 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 · 13 Aug 2026
After · 1 Sept 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 25 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 28 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak28 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1036 µg/m³
Optical depth0.70
23 Aug25 Aug27 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 · 3Every 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 (25 August 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 25 August 2026 (6 days from 20 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 185 hectares (1.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Shakhtarsk (185 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Shakhtarsk and came within 53.5 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 33.9 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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: 34. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 178 ha; 0 % went past 1,000 ha. In 4 of 34, 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 2.6 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.
  • 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. 3 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.