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UA · Ukraine · –

Sloviansk fire, October 2026 Слов'янський район · Sloviansk, Kostiantynivka, Lyman

Out · last detection 30 Oct 2026, 11:19 UTC

Satellites first detected fire on 26 October 2026 in Sloviansk, Ukraine. It was active for 5 days, with 15 heat detections and an area with fire of about 196 hectares rebuilt from them, spread across 3 municipalities.

The power measured by the satellite is low (17.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Copernicus has not yet published the burnt perimeter, which takes a few days to measure on satellite imagery. For now the area is the one rebuilt from heat detections (about 14 hectares per pixel). When the perimeter arrives, this page picks it up on its own and keeps the same address.

Area with fire
≈ 196ha
rebuilt from hotspots, no official perimeter yet
Duration
5days
26 Oct 2026 – 30 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit
3
districts
Started on
26 Oct
2026
Heat detections
15
in a single hotspot: 17 MW
Danger at start
11
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
18MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Oct30 Oct
30 Oct 2026

How it evolved, day by day

26 Oct 2026 · 1 MW · 1 27 Oct 2026 · 18 MW · 5 28 Oct 2026 · 0 MW · 0 29 Oct 2026 · 3 MW · 4 30 Oct 2026 · 50 MW · 7
26 Oct 27 Oct 28 Oct 29 Oct 30 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

15°high
49km/h · peak gust
31%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.7 mm on 31 Oct.

What happened to each town

  1. Sloviansk Слов'янський район 0.6 km from the centre where it started
    182 ha reached on 26 Oct
    0.1 %
  2. Kostiantynivka Костянтинівський район 11.8 km from the centre
    14 ha reached on 26 Oct
    0.0 %
  3. Lyman Лиманський район 21,813 inhabitants · 6.2 km from the centre
    0 ha reached on 26 Oct
    0.0 %

Area with fire inside each municipality, rebuilt from heat detections (about 14 hectares per VIIRS pixel). An estimate until the official perimeter arrives. 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.

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) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
26 Oct 13.3 °C 46 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 11
27 Oct 13.9 °C 38 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
28 Oct 14.6 °C 31 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
29 Oct 14.5 °C 38 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
30 Oct 14.8 °C 42 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
31 Oct after 12.3 °C 46 % 31 km/h 3.7 mm Very low 2

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 11.4, a minimum humidity of 46% and 4 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2024: 7.

FWI at the start 11.4
Minimum humidity 46 %
Days without rain 4
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Zaporizhia fire, July 2024
114 ha 6 days FWI 10.2 Min. humidity 46 % 219 km away, in 2024

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 4.8 mm on 5 Aug.

What happened to them

Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 7. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.

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

3.7 mmfirst rain
31 Octthe day after it ended
49km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 30 Oct, and on 31 Oct 3.7 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2024.
  • 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 Oct 2026
After · 4 Nov 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 11 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 34 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak34 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1040 µg/m³
Optical depth0.44
7 Oct10 Oct13 Oct16 Oct
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 · 15Every 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 Sloviansk fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite, it burned from 26 October 2026 to 30 October 2026 (5 days between the first and the last detection). There is no perimeter yet to date it.
How much area did it burn?
There is no official perimeter yet. Heat detections rebuild about 196 hectares with fire (2.0 km²); Copernicus will publish the measured figure within days.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Sloviansk (182 ha, 0.1 %); Kostiantynivka (14 ha, 0.0 %); Lyman (0 ha, 0.0 %).
Is the Sloviansk fire still active?
No fire detections since 30 Oct 2026, 11:19 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Sloviansk and came within 0.6 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 14.8 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 18, class Moderate.
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 · 12 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Area: ≈ 252 → ≈ 196 ha.
  2. Start date: 25 October 2026 → 26 October 2026.
  3. Area: ≈ 280 → ≈ 252 ha.
  4. Start date: 24 October 2026 → 25 October 2026.
  5. Area: ≈ 224 → ≈ 280 ha.
  6. Start date: 22 October 2026 → 24 October 2026.
  7. Last day with fire: 14 October 2026 → 30 October 2026.
  8. Start date: 20 October 2026 → 22 October 2026.
  9. The page “Lyman, 23 October 2026” has been merged into this one: it was the same fire.
  10. Page published (≈ 224 ha).
  11. Area: ≈ 168 → ≈ 224 ha.
  12. Start date: 11 October 2026 → 20 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
  • No perimeter yet: the area (≈ 196 ha) is estimated by counting VIIRS pixels with fire, about 14 ha each.
  • Dates of the first and last VIIRS detection of the cluster. 15 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Weather: ECMWF IFS model, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives.

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.