How long did the Zarichne fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 March 2020 to 9 April 2020 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 29 March 2020 to 3 April 2020.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 6,649 hectares (66.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Zarichne (3,946 ha, 2.2 %); Liubeshiv (2,709 ha, 2.7 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire started in Zarichne and came within 9.2 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 21.5 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 19, 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.

UA · Ukraine · 2020-03-27 → 2020-04-09

Zarichne fire, 27 March 2020 Зарічненський район · Zarichne, Liubeshiv

Out · last detection 9 Apr 2020, 11:11 UTC

The fire started on 27 March 2020 in Zarichne, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 6,649 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

This entry is probably an agricultural burn of stubble, meadow or peatland, not a wildfire. Before the war, stubble and meadows in Ukraine were burnt every spring and autumn, and the fire often got out of hand. This is our assumption, based on the time of year, ground with almost no woodland and the lack of news about this fire; it is not confirmed. That is why it is left out of the wildfire rankings.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Liubeshiv · 2020 Zarichne · 2025 Zarichne · 2021 Zarichne · 2020

Burnt area: 6,649ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 14days; 27 Mar 2020 – 9 Apr 2020
Municipalities hit: 2; districts
Started on: 27 Mar; 2020
Heat detections: 119; in a single hotspot: 44 MW
Danger at start: 7; Low · FWI index
Average daily power: 93MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Mar9 Apr

Play back 9 Apr 2020

How it evolved, day by day

27 Mar 29 Mar 3 Apr 6 Apr 8 Apr

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

58km/h · peak gust

18%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.8 mm on 13 Apr.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 4.2% of the area of London (66 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Zarichne Зарічненський район 34,911 inhabitants · 9.2 km from the centre where it started

3,946 ha reached on 27 Mar

2.2 %
Liubeshiv Любешівський район 35,824 inhabitants · 21.9 km from the centre

2,709 ha reached on 5 Apr

2.7 %

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 land79 %
Mixed forest12 %
Agricultural areas7.2 %
Coniferous forest1.9 %
Broadleaved forest0.6 %

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)
27 Mar	15.4 °C	18 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 7
28 Mar	17.7 °C	19 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 7
29 Mar	17.2 °C	21 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 11
30 Mar	3.0 °C	50 %	49 km/h	1.3 mm	Very low 2
31 Mar	5.0 °C	28 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 3
1 Apr	6.7 °C	30 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 8
2 Apr	9.7 °C	35 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 7
3 Apr	12.2 °C	33 %	58 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
4 Apr	10.4 °C	23 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
5 Apr	11.9 °C	28 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 8
6 Apr	16.0 °C	19 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
7 Apr	20.1 °C	19 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
8 Apr	17.3 °C	27 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
9 Apr	21.5 °C	19 %	44 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 19
10 Apr after	11.4 °C	26 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
11 Apr after	11.3 °C	24 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
12 Apr after	14.9 °C	22 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
13 Apr after	21.4 °C	29 %	60 km/h	5.8 mm	Very low 3

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

↔

Before · 20 Mar 2020

After · 16 Apr 2020

Before After

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 28 March 2020 the air beside the fire reached 34 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak34 µg/m³

Days over the guideline4 days

PM1044 µg/m³

WHO 15

252627282930311234567891011121314

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 · 119Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Ukraine ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Zarichne fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 March 2020 to 9 April 2020 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 29 March 2020 to 3 April 2020.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 6,649 hectares (66.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Zarichne (3,946 ha, 2.2 %); Liubeshiv (2,709 ha, 2.7 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire started in Zarichne and came within 9.2 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 21.5 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 19, 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.

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 ›

ДСНС · State Emergency Service ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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

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.

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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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 29 March 2020 to 3 April 2020. 119 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.
Probably a vegetation burn: not counted in the totals.

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.

Where it burned