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UA · Ukraine · –

Zolotonosha fire, April 2025 Золотоніський район · Zolotonosha

Out · last detection 26 Apr 2025, 00:28 UTC

The fire started on 25 April 2025 in Zolotonosha, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 293 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 10th largest in Cherkasy Oblast since 2016 (of 28 with a page). Number 404 in Ukraine in 2025, of 1358.

Burnt area
293ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
25 Apr 2025 – 26 Apr 2025
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
25 Apr
2025
Heat detections
15
in a single hotspot: 87 MW
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index
Average daily power
313MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Apr26 Apr
26 Apr 2025

How it evolved, day by day

25 Apr 2025 · 624 MW · 14 26 Apr 2025 · 1 MW · 1
25 Apr 26 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

26°high
45km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.9 mm on 5 May.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Zolotonosha Золотоніський район 14.4 km from the centre where it started
    292 ha reached on 25 Apr
    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 land88 %
  • Broadleaved forest4.8 %
  • Mixed forest3.8 %
  • Coniferous forest2.4 %
  • Other land cover0.7 %

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)
25 Apr 26.1 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
26 Apr 14.5 °C 38 % 45 km/h 0.5 mm High 26
27 Apr after 11.1 °C 27 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
28 Apr after 16.5 °C 23 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
29 Apr after 22.0 °C 21 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Apr after 21.5 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
1 May after 22.1 °C 22 % 49 km/h 0.2 mm High 35
2 May after 16.2 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 May after 25.4 °C 22 % 51 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 49
4 May after 26.9 °C 25 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 May after 18.6 °C 55 % 37 km/h 2.9 mm Low 11

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 24.3, a minimum humidity of 27% and 8 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2020: 20.

FWI at the start 24.3
Minimum humidity 27 %
Days without rain 8
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Chernihiv fire, May 2022
700 ha 3 days FWI 25.8 Min. humidity 27 % 206 km away, in 2022

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.0 mm on 20 May.

What happened to them

3 days
median duration
330 ha
median area
20 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.5 mm
rain at the end (median; 17 of 20 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (293 ha against a median of 330 ha) and lasted 2 days, against 3 days.

In 3 of 20, 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 2.5 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

2.9 mmfirst rain
5 May9 days after it ended
45km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 26 Apr, and on 5 May 2.9 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 17 of 20, with a median of 2.5 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 2020.
  • 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 · 18 Apr 2025
After · 3 May 2025

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 23 April 2025 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak18 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1030 µg/m³
Optical depth0.40
23 Apr25 Apr27 Apr29 Apr
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 · 15Every 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 Zolotonosha fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 25 April 2025 and 26 April 2025: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 293 hectares (2.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Zolotonosha (292 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Zolotonosha and came within 14.4 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 26.1 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2020 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 20. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 330 ha; 20 % went past 1,000 ha. In 3 of 20, 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 2.5 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.

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. 15 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.