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UA · Ukraine · –

Svatove fire, 28 October 2026 Сватівський район · Kreminna, Svatove, Lyman

Out · last detection 30 Oct 2026, 11:19 UTC

Satellites first detected fire on 28 October 2026 in Svatove, Ukraine. It was active for 3 days, with 22 heat detections and an area with fire of about 308 hectares rebuilt from them, spread across 4 municipalities.

The power measured by the satellite is low (10.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Copernicus has not yet published the burnt perimeter, which takes a few days to measure on satellite imagery. For now the area is the one rebuilt from heat detections (about 14 hectares per pixel). When the perimeter arrives, this page picks it up on its own and keeps the same address.

Area with fire
≈ 308ha
rebuilt from hotspots, no official perimeter yet
Duration
3days
28 Oct 2026 – 30 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit
4
districts
Started on
28 Oct
2026
Heat detections
22
in a single hotspot: 11 MW
Danger at start
18
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
44MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Oct30 Oct
30 Oct 2026

How it evolved, day by day

28 Oct 2026 · 36 MW · 8 29 Oct 2026 · 19 MW · 4 30 Oct 2026 · 76 MW · 13
28 Oct 29 Oct 30 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

15°high
48km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.3 mm on 31 Oct.

What happened to each town

  1. Kreminna Кремінський район 41,084 inhabitants · 17.5 km from the centre where it started
    126 ha reached on 28 Oct
    0.1 %
  2. Svatove Сватівський район 80,900 inhabitants · 39.4 km from the centre
    126 ha reached on 29 Oct
    0.1 %
  3. Lyman Лиманський район 21,813 inhabitants · 3.1 km from the centre
    56 ha reached on 28 Oct
    0.1 %
  4. Borova Борівський район 9.2 km from the centre
    0 ha reached on 30 Oct
    0.0 %

Area with fire inside each municipality, rebuilt from heat detections (about 14 hectares per VIIRS pixel). An estimate until the official perimeter arrives. 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.

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) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
28 Oct 15.1 °C 29 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
29 Oct 15.3 °C 36 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
30 Oct 15.3 °C 37 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
31 Oct after 11.3 °C 45 % 34 km/h 4.3 mm Very low 3

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 18.2, a minimum humidity of 29% and 6 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 18.

FWI at the start 18.2
Minimum humidity 29 %
Days without rain 6
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Kreminna fire, April 2022
189 ha 1 day FWI 18.5 Min. humidity 29 % 26 km away, in 2022

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.0 mm on 9 Apr.

What happened to them

4 days
median duration
182 ha
median area
6 %
went past 1,000 ha
3.1 mm
rain at the end (median; 17 of 18 had it)

It was 1.7 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 3 days, against 4 days.

Only 4 of its 18 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 1 of 18, 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 3.1 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

4.3 mmfirst rain
31 Octthe day after it ended
48km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 30 Oct, and on 31 Oct 4.3 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 17 of 18, with a median of 3.1 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives

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 · 21 Oct 2026
After · 6 Nov 2026

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 26 October 2026 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
PM1044 µg/m³
Optical depth0.21
25 Oct27 Oct29 Oct
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 · 22Every 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, it burned from 28 October 2026 to 30 October 2026 (3 days between the first and the last detection). There is no perimeter yet to date it.
How much area did it burn?
There is no official perimeter yet. Heat detections rebuild about 308 hectares with fire (3.1 km²); Copernicus will publish the measured figure within days.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Kreminna (126 ha, 0.1 %); Svatove (126 ha, 0.1 %); Lyman (56 ha, 0.1 %); Borova (0 ha, 0.0 %).
Is the Svatove fire still active?
No fire detections since 30 Oct 2026, 11:19 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire came within 3.1 km of the centre of Lyman, the closest of the areas it touched. 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 15.3 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, class Moderate.
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: 18. Their median duration was 4 days and their median area 182 ha; 6 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 4 of its 18 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 1 of 18, 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 3.1 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 · 6 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 31 October 2026.
  1. Area: ≈ 630 → ≈ 308 ha.
  2. Start date: 27 October 2026 → 28 October 2026.
  3. Area: ≈ 238 → ≈ 630 ha.
  4. The page “Kreminna, 27 October 2026” has been merged into this one: it was the same fire.
  5. Page published (≈ 238 ha).
  6. Page published (≈ 196 ha).

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
  • No perimeter yet: the area (≈ 308 ha) is estimated by counting VIIRS pixels with fire, about 14 ha each.
  • Dates of the first and last VIIRS detection of the cluster. 22 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Weather: ECMWF IFS model, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives.

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.