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UA · Ukraine · –

Vitovka fire, 26 September 2023 Vitovka

Out · last detection 27 Sept 2023, 10:33 UTC

The fire started on 26 September 2023 in Vitovka, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 402 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 34th largest in Mykolaiv Oblast since 2016 (of 115 with a page). Number 98 in Ukraine in 2023, of 491.

The power measured by the satellite is low (10.8 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Holo Prystan · 2023Oleshky · 2023Holo Prystan · 2024Holo Prystan · 2022

Burnt area
402ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
26 Sept 2023 – 28 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
26 Sept
2023
Heat detections
8
in a single hotspot: 11 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
65MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Sept28 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

27 Sept 2023 · 65 MW · 8

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
47km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.4 mm on 8 Oct.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Vitovka where it started
    400 ha reached on 27 Sept
    0.2 %

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

  • Agricultural areas77 %
  • Other natural land23 %

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)
26 Sept 28.6 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Sept 28.2 °C 25 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Sept 28.1 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
29 Sept after 28.0 °C 24 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
30 Sept after 26.5 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Oct after 27.1 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
2 Oct after 20.7 °C 35 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
3 Oct after 20.6 °C 41 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Oct after 22.5 °C 48 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
5 Oct after 21.1 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
6 Oct after 21.0 °C 36 % 41 km/h 0.3 mm High 32
7 Oct after 20.7 °C 44 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
8 Oct after 17.0 °C 57 % 52 km/h 5.4 mm Low 7

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 40.5, a minimum humidity of 27% and 11 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2022: 21.

FWI at the start 40.5
Minimum humidity 27 %
Days without rain 11
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Holo Prystan fire, September 2023
273 ha 6 days FWI 39.5 Min. humidity 27 % 59 km away, in 2023

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

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
197 ha
median area
0 %
went past 1,000 ha
3.8 mm
rain at the end (median; 14 of 21 had it)

It was 2.0 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 3 days, against 2 days.

Only 2 of its 21 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 7 of 21, 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 3.8 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

5.4 mmfirst rain
8 Oct10 days after it ended
47km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 28 Sept, and on 8 Oct 5.4 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 14 of 21, with a median of 3.8 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 2022.
  • 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 · 19 Sept 2023
After · 5 Oct 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 26 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 25 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak25 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1054 µg/m³
Optical depth0.20
25 Sept27 Sept29 Sept1 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 · 8Every 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 Vitovka fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 September 2023 to 28 September 2023 (3 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 September 2023 to 28 September 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 402 hectares (4.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Vitovka (400 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.6 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, class Very 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 2022 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 21. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 197 ha; 0 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 2 of its 21 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 7 of 21, 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 3.8 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.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

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
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 27 September 2023 to 28 September 2023. 8 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.