How long did the Afşin fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite, it burned from 21 October 2026 to 26 October 2026 (6 days between the first and the last detection). There is no perimeter yet to date it.

How much area did it burn?

There is no official perimeter yet. Heat detections rebuild about 210 hectares with fire (2.1 km²); Copernicus will publish the measured figure within days.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Elbistan (126 ha, 0.1 %); Afşin (84 ha, 0.1 %).

Is the Afşin fire still active?

No fire detections since 26 Oct 2026, 11:10 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire came within 5.4 km of the centre of Elbistan, the closest of the areas it touched. 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.

Where does this data come from?

From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Türkiye (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

TR · Türkiye · 2026-10-21 → 2026-10-26

Afşin fire, October 2026 Elbistan, Afşin

Dying down · last detection 26 Oct 2026, 11:10 UTC

Satellites first detected fire on 21 October 2026 in Afşin, Türkiye. It has been active for 6 days, with 16 heat detections and an area with fire of about 210 hectares rebuilt from them, spread across 2 municipalities.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Elbistan · 2016 Elbistan · 2024 Elbistan · 2016 Elbistan · 2019

Copernicus has not yet published the burnt perimeter, which takes a few days to measure on satellite imagery. For now the area is the one rebuilt from heat detections (about 14 hectares per pixel). When the perimeter arrives, this page picks it up on its own and keeps the same address.

Is it still active?

No detections since 26 Oct 2026, 11:10 UTC. That usually means no flame is visible from space any more, although hotspots may remain. Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.

Area with fire: ≈ 210ha; rebuilt from hotspots, no official perimeter yet
Duration: 6days; 21 Oct 2026 – 26 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; districts
Started on: 21 Oct; 2026
Heat detections: 16; in a single hotspot: 35 MW
Average daily power: 17MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Oct26 Oct

Play back 26 Oct 2026

How it evolved, day by day

21 Oct 22 Oct 23 Oct 24 Oct 25 Oct 26 Oct

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

What happened to each town

Elbistan 142,548 inhabitants · 5.4 km from the centre

126 ha reached on 21 Oct

0.1 %
Afşin 81,423 inhabitants · 6.5 km from the centre where it started

84 ha reached on 21 Oct

0.1 %

Area with fire inside each municipality, rebuilt from heat detections (about 14 hectares per VIIRS pixel). An estimate until the official perimeter arrives. 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.

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 14 Oct 2026

After · 26 Oct 2026

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.

Detections table · 16Every 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 Türkiye ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Afşin fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite, it burned from 21 October 2026 to 26 October 2026 (6 days between the first and the last detection). There is no perimeter yet to date it.
How much area did it burn?: There is no official perimeter yet. Heat detections rebuild about 210 hectares with fire (2.1 km²); Copernicus will publish the measured figure within days.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Elbistan (126 ha, 0.1 %); Afşin (84 ha, 0.1 %).
Is the Afşin fire still active?: No fire detections since 26 Oct 2026, 11:10 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire came within 5.4 km of the centre of Elbistan, the closest of the areas it touched. 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.
Where does this data come from?: From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Türkiye (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: 112 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

OGM · Orman Genel Müdürlüğü ↗
AFAD ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

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 112.

How we know this

No perimeter yet: the area (≈ 210 ha) is estimated by counting VIIRS pixels with fire, about 14 ha each.
Dates of the first and last VIIRS detection of the cluster. 16 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.

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 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). 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.