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UA · Ukraine · –

Svatove fire, August 2023 Сватівський район · Svatove

Out · last detection 1 Sept 2023, 10:22 UTC

The fire started on 24 August 2023 in Svatove, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 175 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 509th largest in Luhansk Oblast since 2016 (of 909 with a page). Number 267 in Ukraine in 2023, of 491.

The power measured by the satellite is low (16.1 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
175ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
9days
24 Aug 2023 – 1 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
24 Aug
2023
Heat detections
3
in a single hotspot: 16 MW
Danger at start
18
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
9MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Aug1 Sept
1 Sept 2023

How it evolved, day by day

24 Aug 2023 · 9 MW · 1 31 Aug 2023 · 16 MW · 1 1 Sept 2023 · 2 MW · 1
24 Aug 31 Aug 1 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

31°high
37km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone one day 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

  1. Svatove Сватівський район 80,900 inhabitants · 46.5 km from the centre where it started
    174 ha reached on 24 Aug
    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 land80 %
  • Mixed forest11 %
  • Agricultural areas9.4 %

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)
24 Aug 24.8 °C 38 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
25 Aug 24.6 °C 46 % 36 km/h 1.1 mm Low 11
26 Aug 25.3 °C 39 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
27 Aug 28.8 °C 55 % 37 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 13
28 Aug 29.6 °C 44 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
29 Aug 25.5 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
30 Aug 26.7 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
31 Aug 29.7 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
1 Sept 31.3 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.5 mm High 30
2 Sept after 24.5 °C 57 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
3 Sept after 26.3 °C 43 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
4 Sept after 27.5 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
5 Sept after 26.5 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
6 Sept after 26.5 °C 39 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
7 Sept after 22.5 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
8 Sept after 20.6 °C 33 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
9 Sept after 14.9 °C 42 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
10 Sept after 19.9 °C 49 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
11 Sept after 21.3 °C 45 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 17.6, a minimum humidity of 38% and 1 day without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 17.

FWI at the start 17.6
Minimum humidity 38 %
Days without rain 1
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Kupiansk fire, September 2025
102 ha 3 days FWI 17.6 Min. humidity 36 % 28 km away, in 2025

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

3 days
median duration
164 ha
median area
0 %
went past 1,000 ha
5.7 mm
rain at the end (median; 13 of 17 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (175 ha against a median of 164 ha) and lasted 9 days, against 3 days.

In 4 of 17, 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 5.7 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

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
37km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 1 Sept, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 13 of 17, with a median of 5.7 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 2016.
  • 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 · 17 Aug 2023
After · 8 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 27 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 16 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak16 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1019 µg/m³
Optical depth1.42
22 Aug25 Aug28 Aug31 Aug3 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 Svatove fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 24 August 2023 to 1 September 2023 (9 days). The perimeter dates it from 24 August 2023 to 25 August 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 175 hectares (1.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Svatove (174 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Svatove and came within 46.5 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 31.3 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 17. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 164 ha; 0 % went past 1,000 ha. In 4 of 17, 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 5.7 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.

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 24 August 2023 to 25 August 2023. 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.

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.