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Tatarbunary fire, September 2026 Татарбунарський район · Ukraine

Out · last detection 3 Oct 2026, 23:58 UTC

Satellites first detected fire on 29 September 2026 in Tatarbunary, Ukraine. It was active for 5 days, with 6 heat detections and an area with fire of about 252 hectares rebuilt from them, spread across a single municipality.

The power measured by the satellite is low (6.4 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
≈ 252ha
rebuilt from hotspots, no official perimeter yet
Duration
5days
29 Sept 2026 – 3 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit
0
districts
Started on
29 Sept
2026
Heat detections
6
in a single hotspot: 6 MW
Danger at start
19
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
7MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Sept3 Oct
3 Oct 2026

How it evolved, day by day

29 Sept 2026 · 3 MW · 1 2 Oct 2026 · 15 MW · 4 3 Oct 2026 · 3 MW · 1
29 Sept 2 Oct 3 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

22°high
44km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

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)
29 Sept 21.6 °C 41 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
30 Sept 19.6 °C 43 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
1 Oct 20.1 °C 40 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
2 Oct 19.0 °C 37 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
3 Oct 20.1 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
4 Oct after 22.1 °C 34 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
5 Oct after 23.8 °C 33 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 19.0, a minimum humidity of 41% and 7 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2017: 18.

FWI at the start 19.0
Minimum humidity 41 %
Days without rain 7
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Reni fire, September 2025
195 ha 3 days FWI 19.7 Min. humidity 41 % 135 km away, in 2025

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 5.1 mm on 3 Oct.

What happened to them

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

It burned an area similar to its twins (252 ha against a median of 263 ha) and lasted 5 days, against 4 days.

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 2.1 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

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
44km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 3 Oct, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 17 of 18, with a median of 2.1 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 2017.
  • 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 · 22 Sept 2026
After · 10 Oct 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 4 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 9 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak9 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1012 µg/m³
Optical depth0.34
27 Sept29 Sept1 Oct3 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 · 6Every 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 Tatarbunary fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite, it burned from 29 September 2026 to 3 October 2026 (5 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 252 hectares with fire (2.5 km²); Copernicus will publish the measured figure within days.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 21.6 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 44 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 2017 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 18. Their median duration was 4 days and their median area 263 ha; 6 % went past 1,000 ha. 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 2.1 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 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
  • No perimeter yet: the area (≈ 252 ha) is estimated by counting VIIRS pixels with fire, about 14 ha each.
  • Dates of the first and last VIIRS detection of the cluster. 6 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • 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.