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Vasylkivka fire, 3 September 2026 Васильківський район · Ukraine

Out · last detection 21 Sept 2026, 09:32 UTC

Satellites first detected fire on 3 September 2026 in Vasylkivka, Ukraine. It was active for 19 days, with 16 heat detections and an area with fire of about 238 hectares rebuilt from them, spread across a single municipality.

The power measured by the satellite is low (29.7 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
≈ 238ha
rebuilt from hotspots, no official perimeter yet
Duration
19days
3 Sept 2026 – 21 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit
0
districts
Started on
3 Sept
2026
Heat detections
16
in a single hotspot: 30 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
17MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Sept21 Sept
21 Sept 2026

How it evolved, day by day

3 Sept 2026 · 3 MW · 1 5 Sept 2026 · 8 MW · 2 11 Sept 2026 · 2 MW · 1 13 Sept 2026 · 5 MW · 2 18 Sept 2026 · 28 MW · 2 20 Sept 2026 · 54 MW · 8 21 Sept 2026 · 0 MW · 0
3 Sept 11 Sept 20 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

32°high
53km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 16.9 mm on 23 Sept.

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)
3 Sept 27.6 °C 31 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Sept 27.9 °C 30 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Sept 30.7 °C 27 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
6 Sept 23.9 °C 37 % 45 km/h 5.9 mm Low 9
7 Sept 19.5 °C 42 % 49 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 18
8 Sept 22.6 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Sept 25.4 °C 30 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
10 Sept 29.4 °C 31 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
11 Sept 29.0 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
12 Sept 30.8 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Sept 31.6 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Sept 25.4 °C 38 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
15 Sept 15.6 °C 80 % 38 km/h 4.1 mm Very low 3
16 Sept 19.1 °C 58 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
17 Sept 23.0 °C 35 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
18 Sept 24.6 °C 31 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
19 Sept 27.2 °C 28 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
20 Sept 28.3 °C 25 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
21 Sept 28.2 °C 32 % 39 km/h 2.6 mm Very high 42
22 Sept after 20.5 °C 46 % 30 km/h 0.8 mm Low 8
23 Sept after 18.3 °C 80 % 69 km/h 16.9 mm Very low 0

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 39.9, a minimum humidity of 31% and 5 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2020: 28.

FWI at the start 39.9
Minimum humidity 31 %
Days without rain 5
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Vasylivka fire, July 2024
148 ha 5 days FWI 40.0 Min. humidity 31 % 72 km away, in 2024

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.6 mm on 22 Jul.

What happened to them

4 days
median duration
187 ha
median area
0 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.5 mm
rain at the end (median; 18 of 28 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (238 ha against a median of 187 ha) and lasted 19 days, against 4 days.

In 10 of 28, 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 2.5 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

16.9 mmfirst rain
23 Sept2 days after it ended
53km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 21 Sept, and on 23 Sept 16.9 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 18 of 28, with a median of 2.5 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 2020.
  • 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 · 27 Aug 2026
After · 28 Sept 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 19 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak18 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1021 µg/m³
Optical depth0.26
16171819
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 · 16Every 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 Vasylkivka fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite, it burned from 3 September 2026 to 21 September 2026 (19 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 238 hectares with fire (2.4 km²); Copernicus will publish the measured figure within days.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.6 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, class Extreme.
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 2020 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 28. Their median duration was 4 days and their median area 187 ha; 0 % went past 1,000 ha. In 10 of 28, 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 2.5 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 (≈ 238 ha) is estimated by counting VIIRS pixels with fire, about 14 ha each.
  • Dates of the first and last VIIRS detection of the cluster. 16 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.