Burned area
satellite only1,289ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 21 Jul 2025 – 11 Aug 2025
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
IQ · Iraq · –
Al-Kahla fire, July 2025 Al-Kahla
Out · last detection 11 Aug 2025, 22:28 UTC
The fire started on 21 July 2025 in Al-Kahla, Iraq, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,289 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 22th largest in Maysan since 2016 (of 29 with a page). Number 8 in Iraq in 2025, of 14.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-27matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only22days
21 Jul 2025 to 11 Aug 2025: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 11 Aug 2025, 22:28 UTC
+− cross-check
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.
Start
satellite only21 Jul 2025
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 21 Jul 2025
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only326
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 152 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 21 Jul 2025 – 11 Aug 2025
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only1,486MW
Total radiative power on 30 July 2025; hotspots that day: 59.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 30 Jul 2025
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model101.1FWI · very extreme
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 60.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 21 Jul 2025, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model50.9°C · 9% RH
High of 50.9 °C and minimum humidity of 9% on 25 July 2025; gusts of 70 km/h on 30 July 2025.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 21 Jul 2025 – 11 Aug 2025
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logLast day with fire: 4 August 2025 → 11 August 2025.
-
logStart date: 28 July 2025 → 21 July 2025.
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
What was saved on 27 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 1,289 ha
- Dates
- 21 Jul 2025 – 11 Aug 2025
- Name
- Al-Kahla
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/al-kahla-2025-07?v=2026-10-27A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire al-kahla-2025-07.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-07-21 | 8 | 42 | 48.8 | 33.1 | 7 | 31.2 | 56.9 | 0 | 101.1 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-07-22 | 7 | 30 | 47.8 | 32.9 | 8 | 33.9 | 59.4 | 0 | 107.4 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-07-23 | 5 | 19 | 49.4 | 32 | 9 | 25.8 | 43.9 | 0 | 90.9 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-07-24 | 2 | 4 | 50.6 | 33.2 | 9 | 20.1 | 33.5 | 0 | 80.7 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-07-25 | 17 | 146 | 50.9 | 33.5 | 9 | 14 | 21.6 | 0 | 71 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-07-26 | 14 | 80 | 50.3 | 32.3 | 10 | 13.8 | 28.4 | 0 | 70.9 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-07-27 | 0 | 0 | 50.7 | 32.2 | 9 | 12.3 | 26.3 | 0 | 68.9 | extremo | 1 |
| 2025-07-28 | 0 | 0 | 50.9 | 34.2 | 9 | 10.4 | 19.4 | 0 | 66.3 | extremo | 1 |
| 2025-07-29 | 6 | 50 | 50.2 | 32 | 8 | 13.7 | 21.6 | 0 | 71.6 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-07-30 | 59 | 1,486 | 49.3 | 35.7 | 8 | 40.7 | 69.8 | 0 | 127.5 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-07-31 | 59 | 519 | 49.1 | 34.9 | 8 | 28.3 | 50 | 0 | 98.8 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-08-01 | 51 | 480 | 49.1 | 33.1 | 11 | 16.9 | 32.4 | 0 | 74.5 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-08-02 | 37 | 249 | 48.4 | 34.1 | 11 | 20.9 | 37.4 | 0 | 80.4 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-08-03 | 28 | 188 | 48.5 | 33.6 | 11 | 26.5 | 44.6 | 0 | 90.7 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-08-04 | 20 | 133 | 50.4 | 34.1 | 11 | 24.8 | 42.1 | 0 | 87.8 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-08-05 | 3 | 12 | 49.3 | 33.6 | 13 | 19.4 | 30.6 | 0 | 76.5 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-08-06 | 1 | 2 | 49.6 | 32.7 | 14 | 19 | 32 | 0 | 75 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-08-07 | 0 | 0 | 49.5 | 34.6 | 13 | 12.4 | 28.1 | 0 | 65.1 | extremo | 1 |
| 2025-08-08 | 0 | 0 | 48.9 | 33 | 15 | 15.5 | 49 | 0.6 | 60.1 | extremo | 1 |
| 2025-08-09 | 0 | 0 | 49 | 33.3 | 12 | 30.4 | 27 | 0 | 87.7 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-08-10 | 2 | 3 | 48.5 | 33.7 | 17 | 21.9 | 22.7 | 0.3 | 73.3 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-08-11 | 7 | 20 | 48 | 34.3 | 16 | 26.1 | 30.6 | 0.6 | 73.8 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-08-12 | 0 | 0 | 48.7 | 32.9 | 12 | 16.9 | 29.5 | 0 | 65 | extremo | 0 |
| 2025-08-13 | 0 | 0 | 50.3 | 30.7 | 8 | 25.8 | 40.7 | 0 | 86 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2025-08-14 | 0 | 0 | 50.2 | 31.8 | 7 | 17.5 | 28.1 | 0 | 72.8 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2025-08-15 | 0 | 0 | 50.4 | 32.3 | 10 | 10.1 | 25.2 | 0 | 62.1 | extremo | 0 |
| 2025-08-16 | 0 | 0 | 47.6 | 32.2 | 17 | 17 | 33.1 | 0 | 67 | extremo | 0 |
| 2025-08-17 | 0 | 0 | 48.4 | 31.9 | 11 | 17.4 | 32.4 | 0 | 67.9 | extremo | 0 |
| 2025-08-18 | 0 | 0 | 48.9 | 31.3 | 9 | 18.1 | 34.2 | 0 | 70.3 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2025-08-19 | 0 | 0 | 47.5 | 31.5 | 12 | 22.1 | 38.2 | 0 | 77.1 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2025-08-20 | 0 | 0 | 46.9 | 31.7 | 10 | 28.7 | 48.2 | 0 | 89.2 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2025-08-21 | 0 | 0 | 46.3 | 30.1 | 11 | 25.7 | 39.2 | 0 | 84 | muy_extremo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 1,289ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 22days
- 21 Jul 2025 – 11 Aug 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 21 Jul
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 326
- in a single hotspot: 152 MW
- Danger at start
- 101
- Very extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 204MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
21 Jul11 Aug
11 Aug 2025
How it evolved, day by day
21 Jul
25 Jul
30 Jul
4 Aug
11 Aug
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
51°high
70km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 20 ha in 2016, 294 ha in 2017, 1,692 ha in 2018, 1,077 ha in 2021, 1,674 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,257 ha that had burned before.
- 837 ha Al-Kahla fire, March 2018 2,797 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 505 ha Al-Kahla fire, June 2021 1,975 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 340 ha Al-Kahla fire, May 2022 8,615 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 172 ha Al-Kahla fire, August 2021 2,798 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 20 ha Al-Kahla fire, January 2016 3,138 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 13 ha Al-Kahla fire, March 2018 1,627 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Al-Kahla where it started1,291 ha reached on 21 Jul0.4 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS 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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20
Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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)
Started with Strong wind: 14 % of the area in Iraq Very dry air: 69 % of the area in Iraq 60 days without rain: 27 % of the area in Iraq
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 Jul | 48.8 °C | 7 % | 57 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 101 |
| 22 Jul | 47.8 °C | 8 % | 59 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 107 |
| 23 Jul | 49.4 °C | 9 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 91 |
| 24 Jul | 50.6 °C | 9 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 81 |
| 25 Jul | 50.9 °C | 9 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 71 |
| 26 Jul | 50.3 °C | 10 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 71 |
| 27 Jul | 50.7 °C | 9 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 69 |
| 28 Jul | 50.9 °C | 9 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 29 Jul | 50.2 °C | 8 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 72 |
| 30 Jul | 49.3 °C | 8 % | 70 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 128 |
| 31 Jul | 49.1 °C | 8 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 99 |
| 1 Aug | 49.1 °C | 11 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 74 |
| 2 Aug | 48.4 °C | 11 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 80 |
| 3 Aug | 48.5 °C | 11 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 91 |
| 4 Aug | 50.4 °C | 11 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 88 |
| 5 Aug | 49.3 °C | 13 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 76 |
| 6 Aug | 49.6 °C | 14 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 75 |
| 7 Aug | 49.5 °C | 13 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 8 Aug | 48.9 °C | 15 % | 49 km/h | 0.6 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 9 Aug | 49.0 °C | 12 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 88 |
| 10 Aug | 48.5 °C | 17 % | 23 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very extreme 73 |
| 11 Aug | 48.0 °C | 16 % | 31 km/h | 0.6 mm | Very extreme 74 |
| 12 Aug after | 48.7 °C | 12 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 13 Aug after | 50.3 °C | 8 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 86 |
| 14 Aug after | 50.2 °C | 7 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 73 |
| 15 Aug after | 50.4 °C | 10 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 16 Aug after | 47.6 °C | 17 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 17 Aug after | 48.4 °C | 11 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 18 Aug after | 48.9 °C | 9 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 70 |
| 19 Aug after | 47.5 °C | 12 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 77 |
| 20 Aug after | 46.9 °C | 10 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 89 |
| 21 Aug after | 46.3 °C | 11 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 84 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 101.1, a minimum humidity of 7% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 13.
FWI at the start
101.1
Minimum humidity
7 %
Days without rain
60+
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Al-Kahla fire, July 2025
1,289 ha
22 days
FWI 101.1
Min. humidity 7 %
Afaq fire, August 2025
1,023 ha
7 days
FWI 99.0
Min. humidity 8 %
220 km away, in 2025
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Al-Kahla fire, August 2021
2,798 ha
22 days
FWI 93.7
Min. humidity 6 %
6 km away, in 2021
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Karun fire, October 2018
1,170 ha
20 days
FWI 95.7
Min. humidity 6 %
109 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 4.4 mm on 27 Oct.
Suq Al-Shoyokh fire, September 2018
1,371 ha
2 days
FWI 106.6
Min. humidity 8 %
125 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Al-Chibayish fire, August 2022
1,253 ha
1 day
FWI 109.9
Min. humidity 9 %
123 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
What happened to them
Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 13. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.
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
—first rain
—no rain in ten days
70km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 11 Aug, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain.
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 2016.
- 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.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 14 Jul 2025
After · 18 Aug 2025
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · CopernicusOn 4 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 90 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 71: 4.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak90 µg/m³
Days over the guideline13 days
PM10494 µg/m³
Optical depth0.92
WHO 15
26 Jul29 Jul1 Aug4 Aug7 Aug
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 · 326Every 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
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Al-Kahla fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 21 July 2025 to 11 August 2025 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 28 July 2025 to 4 August 2025.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,289 hectares (12.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Al-Kahla (1,291 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 50.9 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 70 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 128, class Very extreme.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Iraq (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.
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 4 August 2025 → 11 August 2025.
- Start date: 28 July 2025 → 21 July 2025.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 28 July 2025 to 4 August 2025. 326 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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
Where this data comes from
The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. 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 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.