How long did the Sumy fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 23 August 2024 and 24 August 2024: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 115 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Sumy (115 ha, 0.1 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.7 km of Sumy. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 29.2 °C, humidity dropped to 46 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 23, 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.

UA · Ukraine · 2024-08-23 → 2024-08-24

Sumy fire, 23 August 2024 Сумський район · Sumy

Out · last detection 24 Aug 2024, 10:09 UTC

The fire started on 23 August 2024 in Sumy, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 115 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 99th largest in Sumy Oblast since 2016 (of 129 with a page). Number 1787 in Ukraine in 2024, of 2092.

The power measured by the satellite is low (6.0 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: 115ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 2days; 23 Aug 2024 – 24 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 23 Aug; 2024
Heat detections: 7; in a single hotspot: 6 MW
Danger at start: 21; High · FWI index
Energy released: 24MW; sum of detected power

Play back 24 Aug 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Aug24 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2324

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

The weather it burned in

29°high

36km/h · peak gust

46%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 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.

What happened to each town

Sumy Сумський район 0.7 km from the town where it started

115 ha reached on 23 Aug

0.1 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

Mixed forest63 %
Other natural land32 %
Broadleaved forest5.1 %

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	Danger (FWI)
23 Aug	27.6 °C	50 %	32 km/h	High 21
24 Aug	29.2 °C	46 %	36 km/h	High 23
25 Aug after	31.9 °C	37 %	24 km/h	High 23
26 Aug after	32.5 °C	33 %	24 km/h	High 24
27 Aug after	30.7 °C	29 %	36 km/h	High 29
28 Aug after	30.6 °C	32 %	35 km/h	High 29
29 Aug after	30.8 °C	25 %	35 km/h	High 33
30 Aug after	30.7 °C	22 %	38 km/h	High 35
31 Aug after	30.4 °C	26 %	28 km/h	High 33
1 Sept after	30.1 °C	26 %	40 km/h	High 38
2 Sept after	29.9 °C	24 %	40 km/h	Very high 42
3 Sept after	26.1 °C	31 %	36 km/h	High 36

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

↔

Before · 16 Aug 2024

After · 31 Aug 2024

Before After

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 21 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 12 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak12 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1024 µg/m³

Optical depth0.34

21222324252627

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 · 7Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Ukraine ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Sumy fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 23 August 2024 and 24 August 2024: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 115 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Sumy (115 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.7 km of Sumy. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 29.2 °C, humidity dropped to 46 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 23, 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.

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

ДСНС · State Emergency Service ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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.

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.

Where it burned