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UA · Ukraine · –

Snovsk fire, 5 September 2024 Сновський район · Snovsk

Out · last detection 18 Sept 2024, 22:52 UTC

The fire started on 5 September 2024 in Snovsk, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,570 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 3th largest in Chernihiv Oblast since 2016 (of 156 with a page). Number 24 in Ukraine in 2024, of 2092.

The power measured by the satellite is low (22.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
2,570ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
13days
5 Sept 2024 – 17 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
5 Sept
2024
Heat detections
221
in a single hotspot: 23 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
72MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Sept17 Sept
18 Sept 2024

How it evolved, day by day

5 Sept 2024 · 2 MW · 2 6 Sept 2024 · 8 MW · 3 7 Sept 2024 · 58 MW · 10 8 Sept 2024 · 50 MW · 15 9 Sept 2024 · 28 MW · 9 10 Sept 2024 · 15 MW · 9 13 Sept 2024 · 7 MW · 1 14 Sept 2024 · 54 MW · 8 15 Sept 2024 · 384 MW · 99 16 Sept 2024 · 189 MW · 38 17 Sept 2024 · 61 MW · 23 18 Sept 2024 · 9 MW · 4
5 Sept 8 Sept 15 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
53km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 22 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.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.6% of the area of London (26 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Snovsk Сновський район 23,331 inhabitants · 20.1 km from the centre where it started
    726 ha reached on 8 Sept
    0.6 %

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

  • Mixed forest39 %
  • Broadleaved forest26 %
  • Other natural land24 %
  • Coniferous forest9.6 %
  • Agricultural areas1.1 %

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)
5 Sept 26.6 °C 40 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
6 Sept 25.2 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
7 Sept 25.9 °C 25 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Sept 26.3 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Sept 25.8 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.3 mm Extreme 52
10 Sept 25.9 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Sept 26.2 °C 46 % 35 km/h 0.3 mm High 37
12 Sept 28.4 °C 48 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Sept 26.7 °C 38 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
14 Sept 28.1 °C 28 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
15 Sept 28.5 °C 18 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
16 Sept 27.3 °C 24 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
17 Sept 26.9 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 58
18 Sept after 22.4 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
19 Sept after 24.0 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
20 Sept after 23.8 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Sept after 24.4 °C 37 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
22 Sept after 22.8 °C 39 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
23 Sept after 22.8 °C 36 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Sept after 26.0 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
25 Sept after 26.8 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
26 Sept after 22.8 °C 35 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
27 Sept after 24.0 °C 56 % 52 km/h 0.4 mm High 36

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 47.9, a minimum humidity of 40% and 22 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2020: 3.

FWI at the start 47.9
Minimum humidity 40 %
Days without rain 22
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Novhorod-Siverskyi fire, September 2024
536 ha 5 days FWI 46.6 Min. humidity 35 % 71 km away, in 2024

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.4 mm on 4 Oct.

What happened to them

Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 3. 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

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
53km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 17 Sept, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain.

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 · 29 Aug 2024
After · 24 Sept 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 3 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 21 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak21 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM10100 µg/m³
Optical depth0.48
3 Sept7 Sept11 Sept15 Sept19 Sept
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 · 221Every 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 Snovsk fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 5 September 2024 to 17 September 2024 (13 days). The perimeter dates it from 6 September 2024 to 10 September 2024.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,570 hectares (25.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Snovsk (726 ha, 0.6 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Snovsk and came within 20.1 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 28.5 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 72, class Very 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.

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.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 6 September 2024 to 10 September 2024. 221 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.