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Zmiiv fire, August 2024 Зміївський район · Zmiiv

Out · last measured on 29 Aug 2024

The fire started on 27 August 2024 in Zmiiv, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 338 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 98th largest in Kharkiv Oblast since 2016 (of 558 with a page). Number 511 in Ukraine in 2024, of 2092.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Zmiiv · 2024Zmiiv · 2025Zmiiv · 2024Zmiiv · 2024

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
338ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
27 Aug 2024 – 29 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
27 Aug
2024
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

33°high
44km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Zmiiv Зміївський район 72,587 inhabitants · 13.0 km from the centre where it started
    337 ha
    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

  • Mixed forest60 %
  • Other natural land37 %
  • Broadleaved forest2.4 %

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 Aug 32.0 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Aug 33.0 °C 24 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Aug 33.0 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
30 Aug after 32.5 °C 16 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
31 Aug after 33.2 °C 17 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
1 Sept after 31.5 °C 20 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
2 Sept after 32.3 °C 20 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
3 Sept after 25.4 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 46
4 Sept after 29.1 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
5 Sept after 28.9 °C 27 % 50 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 49
6 Sept after 26.4 °C 20 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
7 Sept after 25.8 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Sept after 26.2 °C 21 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Aug 2024
After · 5 Sept 2024

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 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 12 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak12 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1024 µg/m³
Optical depth0.37
252627282930311
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Ukraine ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Zmiiv fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 27 August 2024 and 29 August 2024: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 338 hectares (3.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Zmiiv (337 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Zmiiv and came within 13.0 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 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.

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

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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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.