Last year, Ukraine suffered from a record number of fires caused by the hostilities. Their area almost reached 1 million hectares.
This data was published by the Joint Research Center (JRC) of the European Commission in its “Preliminary Report on Forest Fires in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa in 2024”.
JRC experts have concluded that last year was the worst year for Ukraine in the history of the EU Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS).
The researchers found that there is a clear correlation between the frontline of hostilities in our country and fire damage. They examined satellite imagery and found that last year, 8753 fires occurred in Ukraine and burned 965,000 hectares of land, more than twice the area that burned in the entire European Union during the same period. Most of the large fires occurred in the summer, when conditions were dry and hot.
According to the experts, the spatial distribution of the fires coincides with the front line of the war between Ukraine and Russia, which indicates the impact of the illegal invasion on Ukrainian forests. The researchers noted that the consequences of the hostilities in 2024 were worse than in previous fire seasons since the beginning of the war.
Source: Joint Research Center.
“The most significant damage was caused in the east of the country near the front line of hostilities. Most of the large-scale fires of the year occurred in the summer months, when the fire danger index was also very high, and the two largest fires exceeded 8,000 hectares,” the report says.
The most notable feature of the large fires, the authors of the study said, was their sheer number: a total of 317 fires mapped exceeded 500 hectares, of which 110 exceeded 1,000 hectares.
The land cover types most affected were “other natural land” (39%), “agricultural land” (33%), and “mixed forest” (19%):
Source: Joint Research Center.
Earlier, EcoPolitics reported that according to Italian scientists, who also analyzed satellite images, more than 1500 km² of forest was destroyed in Ukraine during the two years of war (2022-2023).
