Skip to content
worldfires
en
UA · Ukraine · –

Sorokyne fire, July 2022 Sorokyne

Out · last measured on 8 Jul 2022

The fire started on 7 July 2022 in Sorokyne, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,461 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 22th largest in Luhansk Oblast since 2016 (of 909 with a page). Number 7 in Ukraine in 2022, of 531.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Popasna · 2025Sorokyne · 2023Dovzhansk · 2024Dovzhansk · 2024

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
2,461ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
7 Jul 2022 – 8 Jul 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
7 Jul
2022
Danger at start
59
Extreme · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

32°high
41km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 9.6 mm on 11 Jul.

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 (25 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. Sorokyne where it started
    2,455 ha
    1.7 %

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 land81 %
  • Agricultural areas19 %

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)

Started with Extreme FWI: 29 % of the area in Ukraine

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
7 Jul 32.2 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
8 Jul 32.3 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
9 Jul after 33.1 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
10 Jul after 33.8 °C 18 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 91
11 Jul after 24.8 °C 36 % 37 km/h 9.6 mm Very low 0

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 58.9, a minimum humidity of 20% and 14 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2020: 51.

FWI at the start 58.9
Minimum humidity 20 %
Days without rain 14
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Popasna fire, August 2025
414 ha 2 days FWI 59.4 Min. humidity 20 % 92 km away, in 2025

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.0 mm on 25 Aug.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
219 ha
median area
8 %
went past 1,000 ha
3.9 mm
rain at the end (median; 34 of 51 had it)

It was 11.2 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 2 days, against 2 days.

Only 2 of its 51 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 17 of 51, 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 3.9 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

9.6 mmfirst rain
11 Jul3 days after it ended
41km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 8 Jul, and on 11 Jul 9.6 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 34 of 51, with a median of 3.9 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 · 30 Jun 2022
After · 15 Jul 2022

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 9 July 2022 the air beside the fire reached 13 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak13 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1051 µg/m³
5 Jul7 Jul9 Jul
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Ukraine

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Sorokyne fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 7 July 2022 to 8 July 2022 (2 days). The perimeter dates it from 7 July 2022 to 7 July 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,461 hectares (24.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sorokyne (2,455 ha, 1.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.3 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 70, 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: 51. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 219 ha; 8 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 2 of its 51 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 17 of 51, 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 3.9 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.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 7 July 2022 to 7 July 2022. No 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.