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UA · Ukraine ·

Starobesheve fire, 6 September 2023 Starobesheve

Out · last detection 6 Sept 2023, 10:27 UTC

The fire started on 6 September 2023 in Starobesheve, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 197 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 434th largest in Donetsk Oblast since 2016 (of 1004 with a page). Number 230 in Ukraine in 2023, of 491.

The power measured by the satellite is low (19.2 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: Volnovakha · 2026Shakhtarsk · 2022Boikivske · 2023Boikivske · 2025

Burnt area
197ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
6 Sept 2023 – 6 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
6 Sept
2023
Heat detections
3
in a single hotspot: 19 MW
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index
Average daily power
58MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Sept6 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

6 Sept 2023 · 58 MW · 3

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

The weather it burned in

27°high
32km/h · peak gust
32%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 19.6 mm on 15 Sept.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Starobesheve where it started
    196 ha reached on 6 Sept
    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 land88 %
  • Agricultural areas12 %

Land cover inside the perimeter as reported by Copernicus EFFIS (outside the Corine Land Cover area).

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
6 Sept 27.2 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
7 Sept after 25.9 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
8 Sept after 22.1 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
9 Sept after 17.6 °C 43 % 42 km/h 0.8 mm High 33
10 Sept after 21.0 °C 42 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Sept after 22.3 °C 43 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
12 Sept after 23.0 °C 36 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
13 Sept after 22.9 °C 38 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
14 Sept after 23.0 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
15 Sept after 20.0 °C 63 % 32 km/h 19.6 mm Low 6

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 24.3, a minimum humidity of 32% and rain the day before. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2020: 22.

FWI at the start 24.3
Minimum humidity 32 %
Days without rain 0
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Volnovakha fire, July 2026
167 ha 4 days FWI 24.5 Min. humidity 32 % 30 km away, in 2026

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.2 mm on 23 Jul.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

3 days
median duration
169 ha
median area
0 %
went past 1,000 ha
3.2 mm
rain at the end (median; 13 of 22 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (197 ha against a median of 169 ha) and lasted 1 day, against 3 days.

In 9 of 22, 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 3.2 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

19.6 mmfirst rain
15 Sept9 days after it ended
32km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 6 Sept, and on 15 Sept 19.6 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 13 of 22, with a median of 3.2 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 Aug 2023
After · 13 Sept 2023

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 7 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 44 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak44 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1060 µg/m³
Optical depth0.46
4 Sept6 Sept8 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 · 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 Starobesheve fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 6 September 2023 and 6 September 2023: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 197 hectares (2.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Starobesheve (196 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.2 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, class 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 2020 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 22. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 169 ha; 0 % went past 1,000 ha. In 9 of 22, 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 3.2 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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.