How long did the Zmiiv fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 8 July 2025 to 9 July 2025 (2 days). The perimeter dates it from 9 July 2025 to 9 July 2025.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 381 hectares (3.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Zmiiv (379 ha, 0.2 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire started in Zmiiv and came within 15.1 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 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.

UA · Ukraine · 2025-07-08 → 2025-07-09

Zmiiv fire, July 2025 Зміївський район · Zmiiv

Out · last detection 9 Jul 2025, 10:29 UTC

The fire started on 8 July 2025 in Zmiiv, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 381 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 80th largest in Kharkiv Oblast since 2016 (of 558 with a page). Number 278 in Ukraine in 2025, of 1359.

The power measured by the satellite is low (29.1 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: Zmiiv · 2024 Zmiiv · 2024 Zmiiv · 2024 Balakliia · 2024

Burnt area: 381ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 2days; 8 Jul 2025 – 9 Jul 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 8 Jul; 2025
Heat detections: 27; in a single hotspot: 29 MW
Danger at start: 44; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 101MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Jul9 Jul

Play back 9 Jul 2025

How it evolved, day by day

8 Jul 9 Jul

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

The weather it burned in

37°high

43km/h · peak gust

10%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 11 Jul.

This area had burned before

38% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 145 ha in 2024.

145 ha Zmiiv fire, March 2024 436 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Zmiiv Зміївський район 72,587 inhabitants · 15.1 km from the centre where it started

379 ha reached on 8 Jul

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

Other natural land68 %
Mixed forest21 %
Agricultural areas11 %

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)
9 Jul	36.8 °C	10 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
10 Jul after	37.6 °C	11 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
11 Jul after	36.8 °C	24 %	44 km/h	1.9 mm	High 30

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 1 Jul 2025

After · 16 Jul 2025

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 11 July 2025 the air beside the fire reached 29 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 21: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak29 µg/m³

Days over the guideline2 days

PM1062 µg/m³

Optical depth0.63

WHO 15

789101112

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 · 27Every 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 Zmiiv fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 8 July 2025 to 9 July 2025 (2 days). The perimeter dates it from 9 July 2025 to 9 July 2025.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 381 hectares (3.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Zmiiv (379 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire started in Zmiiv and came within 15.1 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 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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 ›

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 9 July 2025 to 9 July 2025. 27 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.

Where it burned