How long did the Sumy fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 19 September 2024 and 20 September 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 130 hectares (1.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Sumy (130 ha, 0.1 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.4 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 23.3 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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 · 2024-09-19 → 2024-09-20

Sumy fire, 19 September 2024 Сумський район · Sumy

Out · last detection 20 Sept 2024, 11:43 UTC

The fire started on 19 September 2024 in Sumy, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 130 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 88th largest in Sumy Oblast since 2016 (of 129 with a page). Number 1560 in Ukraine in 2024, of 2092.

The power measured by the satellite is low (10.3 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: 130ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 2days; 19 Sept 2024 – 20 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 19 Sept; 2024
Heat detections: 14; in a single hotspot: 10 MW
Danger at start: 34; High · FWI index
Energy released: 80MW; sum of detected power

Play back 20 Sept 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Sept20 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1920

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

The weather it burned in

23°high

35km/h · peak gust

23%lowest humidity

It had gone 36 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 2.4 km from the town where it started

130 ha reached on 18 Sept

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 forest52 %
Other natural land45 %
Broadleaved forest1.6 %
Agricultural areas1.6 %

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)
19 Sept	23.3 °C	23 %	35 km/h	High 34
20 Sept	23.2 °C	40 %	27 km/h	High 28
21 Sept after	23.7 °C	36 %	22 km/h	High 25
22 Sept after	24.1 °C	35 %	25 km/h	High 27
23 Sept after	23.1 °C	32 %	27 km/h	High 28
24 Sept after	24.7 °C	31 %	27 km/h	High 28
25 Sept after	24.3 °C	27 %	31 km/h	High 30
26 Sept after	22.3 °C	34 %	36 km/h	High 34
27 Sept after	23.7 °C	40 %	54 km/h	Very high 39
28 Sept after	27.4 °C	36 %	50 km/h	High 37
29 Sept after	23.4 °C	28 %	40 km/h	High 34
30 Sept after	19.4 °C	39 %	34 km/h	High 29

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 12 Sept 2024

After · 27 Sept 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 17 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 8 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak8 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1012 µg/m³

Optical depth0.19

1617181920212223

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 · 14Every 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 19 September 2024 and 20 September 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 130 hectares (1.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Sumy (130 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.4 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 23.3 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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.

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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