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UA · Ukraine · –

Skadovsk fire, 26 June 2026 Скадовський район · Skadovsk

Out · last detection 26 Jun 2026, 10:37 UTC

The fire started on 26 June 2026 in Skadovsk, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 287 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 412th largest in Kherson Oblast since 2016 (of 1102 with a page). Number 296 in Ukraine in 2026, of 984.

Burnt area
287ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
≈ 11days
26 Jun 2026 – 6 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
26 Jun
2026
Heat detections
13
in a single hotspot: 30 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Average daily power
156MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Jun6 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

26 Jun 2026 · 156 MW · 13

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
55km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 22.0 mm on 9 Jul.

This area had burned before

24% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 70 ha in 2023.

What happened to each town

  1. Skadovsk Скадовський район 25.1 km from the centre where it started
    287 ha reached on 26 Jun
    0.3 %

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 areas66 %
  • Other natural land29 %
  • Artificial surfaces2.8 %
  • Mixed forest1.4 %

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)
26 Jun 29.6 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Jun 28.8 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
28 Jun 33.6 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Jun 31.7 °C 29 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Jun 34.3 °C 44 % 27 km/h 0.3 mm High 29
1 Jul 33.2 °C 36 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Jul 33.1 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Jul 34.1 °C 27 % 25 km/h 0.2 mm High 37
4 Jul 26.6 °C 57 % 55 km/h 2.3 mm High 23
5 Jul 26.3 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
6 Jul 28.1 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Jul after 29.5 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
8 Jul after 29.6 °C 38 % 48 km/h 0.9 mm Extreme 53
9 Jul after 23.5 °C 73 % 27 km/h 22.0 mm Very low 0

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 36.7, a minimum humidity of 34% and 1 day without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2022: 18.

FWI at the start 36.7
Minimum humidity 34 %
Days without rain 1
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Kalanchak fire, September 2025
458 ha 1 day FWI 37.3 Min. humidity 35 % 10 km away, in 2025

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 6.3 mm on 18 Sept.

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
262 ha
median area
11 %
went past 1,000 ha
5.7 mm
rain at the end (median; 15 of 18 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (287 ha against a median of 262 ha) and lasted 11 days, against 2 days.

In 3 of 18, 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 5.7 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

22.0 mmfirst rain
9 Jul3 days after it ended
55km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 6 Jul, and on 9 Jul 22.0 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 15 of 18, with a median of 5.7 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 2022.
  • 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 · 19 Jun 2026
After · 13 Jul 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 28 June 2026 the air beside the fire reached 9 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak9 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1014 µg/m³
Optical depth0.36
24 Jun26 Jun28 Jun
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 · 13Every 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 Skadovsk fire last?
The official perimeter only gives the start date (26 June 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 6 July 2026 (11 days from 26 June 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 287 hectares (2.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Skadovsk (287 ha, 0.3 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Skadovsk and came within 25.1 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 34.3 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, class Very 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2022 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 18. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 262 ha; 11 % went past 1,000 ha. In 3 of 18, 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 5.7 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.

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. 13 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.