Zhytomyr fire, 28 August 2024 Житомирський район · Zhytomyr
The fire started on 28 August 2024 in Zhytomyr, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 706 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 32th largest in Zhytomyr Oblast since 2016 (of 179 with a page). Number 194 in Ukraine in 2024, of 2092.
The power measured by the satellite is low (22.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
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- Burnt area
- 706ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 5days
- 28 Aug 2024 – 1 Sept 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 28 Aug
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 33
- in a single hotspot: 23 MW
- Danger at start
- 30
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 65MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 3 Sept.
This area had burned before
71% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 35 ha in 2021, 466 ha in 2022, 3 ha in 2023.
- 340 ha Zhytomyr fire, February 2022 3,570 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 126 ha Zhytomyr fire, March 2022 141 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3 ha Zhytomyr fire, August 2023 1,858 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Kyiv boundary: geoBoundaries · OpenStreetMap, Wambacher · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL 1.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
704 ha reached on 28 Aug0.4 %
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 land53 %
- Agricultural areas28 %
- Mixed forest18 %
- Broadleaved forest1.6 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28 Aug | 31.4 °C | 28 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 29 Aug | 31.6 °C | 31 % | 35 km/h | 0.6 mm | High 27 |
| 30 Aug | 31.1 °C | 28 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 31 Aug | 31.3 °C | 23 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 1 Sept | 30.9 °C | 30 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 2 Sept after | 28.0 °C | 30 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 3 Sept after | 29.7 °C | 36 % | 32 km/h | 1.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 3 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 22 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 33Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 3,570 haZhytomyr Житомирський районFebruary 2022 · 4 days · 3 km away
- 1,858 haZhytomyr Житомирський районAugust 2023 · 6 days · 4 km away
- 597 haZhytomyr Житомирський районFebruary 2025 · 3 days · 4 km away
- 204 haZhytomyr Житомирський район30 August 2024 · 1 day · 7 km away
- 216 haRomaniv Романівський район18 April 2025 · 2 days · 19 km away
- 660 haRomaniv Романівський район22 March 2025 · 2 days · 20 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Zhytomyr fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 August 2024 to 1 September 2024 (5 days). The perimeter dates it from 28 August 2024 to 30 August 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 706 hectares (7.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Zhytomyr (704 ha, 0.4 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Zhytomyr and came within 12.1 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 31.6 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class 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.
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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 28 August 2024 to 30 August 2024. 33 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.
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.