Burned area
satellite only1,935ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 8 Aug 2025 – 24 Aug 2025
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
IQ · Iraq · –
Al-Kahla fire, August 2025 Al-Kahla, Al-Mejar Al-Kabir
Out · last detection 24 Aug 2025, 23:25 UTC
The fire started on 8 August 2025 in Al-Kahla, Iraq, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,935 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 12th largest in Maysan since 2016 (of 29 with a page). Number 3 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 only17days
8 Aug 2025 to 24 Aug 2025: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 24 Aug 2025, 23:25 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 only8 Aug 2025
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 8 Aug 2025
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only276
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 123 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 8 Aug 2025 – 24 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 only1,734MW
Total radiative power on 15 August 2025; hotspots that day: 59.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 15 Aug 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
model70.9FWI · 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
- 8 Aug 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
model50.6°C · 10% RH
High of 50.6 °C and minimum humidity of 10% on 15 August 2025; gusts of 49 km/h on 13 August 2025.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 8 Aug 2025 – 24 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: 17 August 2025 → 24 August 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
- 1,935 ha
- Dates
- 8 Aug 2025 – 24 Aug 2025
- Name
- Al-Kahla
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/al-kahla-2025-08?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-2025-08.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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-08-08 | 0 | 0 | 49.4 | 33.2 | 13 | 16.2 | 43.2 | 0 | 70.9 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-08-09 | 27 | 405 | 49.5 | 35.4 | 10 | 28.3 | 24.8 | 0 | 92.5 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-08-10 | 37 | 418 | 48.7 | 33.3 | 15 | 19.1 | 20.5 | 0.1 | 73.3 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-08-11 | 24 | 499 | 48.6 | 35.2 | 15 | 23.8 | 29.2 | 0 | 80.9 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-08-12 | 6 | 18 | 49.3 | 34.5 | 11 | 18 | 28.8 | 0 | 71.6 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-08-13 | 27 | 665 | 50.5 | 33.6 | 8 | 28.6 | 49 | 0 | 91.5 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-08-14 | 9 | 73 | 50.1 | 32.8 | 7 | 19 | 31.3 | 0 | 75.1 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-08-15 | 59 | 1,734 | 50.6 | 30.9 | 10 | 9.1 | 22.3 | 0 | 60.6 | extremo | 1 |
| 2025-08-16 | 41 | 211 | 48.1 | 33.3 | 12 | 10.7 | 27 | 0 | 63 | extremo | 1 |
| 2025-08-17 | 12 | 34 | 48.7 | 32.7 | 10 | 15.6 | 31.3 | 0 | 70.5 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-08-18 | 7 | 19 | 48.7 | 32.4 | 9 | 21.1 | 38.9 | 0 | 79.8 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-08-19 | 4 | 26 | 47.5 | 32.3 | 11 | 21.1 | 38.9 | 0 | 79.7 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-08-20 | 4 | 26 | 47 | 32.1 | 9 | 27.7 | 48.2 | 0 | 92.2 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-08-21 | 7 | 13 | 46.3 | 30.7 | 10 | 23.8 | 43.9 | 0 | 84.4 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-08-22 | 4 | 12 | 45.7 | 29.2 | 10 | 19.6 | 37.1 | 0 | 76.5 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-08-23 | 1 | 3 | 46.8 | 27.8 | 10 | 16.6 | 31.3 | 0 | 71.9 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-08-24 | 7 | 79 | 48.1 | 30 | 10 | 14.3 | 29.9 | 0 | 68.6 | extremo | 1 |
| 2025-08-25 | 0 | 0 | 48.6 | 31.1 | 10 | 17.9 | 33.1 | 0 | 74.6 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2025-08-26 | 0 | 0 | 48 | 32.5 | 12 | 26.4 | 47.2 | 0 | 88.7 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2025-08-27 | 0 | 0 | 47.4 | 33.1 | 14 | 21.8 | 38.2 | 0 | 77.5 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2025-08-28 | 0 | 0 | 47.4 | 31.1 | 16 | 17.9 | 29.9 | 0 | 69 | extremo | 0 |
| 2025-08-29 | 0 | 0 | 47.7 | 32 | 13 | 21.1 | 37.8 | 0 | 74.3 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2025-08-30 | 0 | 0 | 48.2 | 32.2 | 12 | 19.8 | 36.7 | 0 | 72.5 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2025-08-31 | 0 | 0 | 48.4 | 31.5 | 11 | 27.8 | 46.4 | 0 | 86.6 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2025-09-01 | 0 | 0 | 43.9 | 30.9 | 14 | 28.7 | 52.2 | 0 | 85.7 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2025-09-02 | 0 | 0 | 44.9 | 28.8 | 15 | 18.2 | 37.8 | 0 | 68 | extremo | 0 |
| 2025-09-03 | 0 | 0 | 45.6 | 30.1 | 11 | 12.1 | 28.1 | 0 | 59.6 | 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
- 1,935ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 17days
- 8 Aug 2025 – 24 Aug 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 8 Aug
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 276
- in a single hotspot: 123 MW
- Danger at start
- 71
- Very extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 264MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
8 Aug24 Aug
24 Aug 2025
How it evolved, day by day
9 Aug
15 Aug
21 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
49km/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
94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 697 ha in 2018, 1,091 ha in 2021, 1,960 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,827 ha that had burned before.
- 1,091 ha Al-Kahla fire, June 2021 1,456 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 874 ha Al-Kahla fire, July 2022 1,233 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 832 ha Al-Kahla fire, July 2022 1,872 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 249 ha Al-Kahla fire, July 2022 1,045 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 99 ha Al-Mejar Al-Kabir fire, April 2018 1,906 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 started1,788 ha reached on 9 Aug0.5 %
-
150 ha reached on 10 Aug0.1 %
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 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 Aug | 49.4 °C | 13 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 71 |
| 9 Aug | 49.5 °C | 10 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 92 |
| 10 Aug | 48.7 °C | 15 % | 20 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very extreme 73 |
| 11 Aug | 48.6 °C | 15 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 81 |
| 12 Aug | 49.3 °C | 11 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 72 |
| 13 Aug | 50.5 °C | 8 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 92 |
| 14 Aug | 50.1 °C | 7 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 75 |
| 15 Aug | 50.6 °C | 10 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 16 Aug | 48.1 °C | 12 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 17 Aug | 48.7 °C | 10 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 70 |
| 18 Aug | 48.7 °C | 9 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 80 |
| 19 Aug | 47.5 °C | 11 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 80 |
| 20 Aug | 47.0 °C | 9 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 92 |
| 21 Aug | 46.3 °C | 10 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 84 |
| 22 Aug | 45.7 °C | 10 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 76 |
| 23 Aug | 46.8 °C | 10 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 72 |
| 24 Aug | 48.1 °C | 10 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 69 |
| 25 Aug after | 48.6 °C | 10 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 75 |
| 26 Aug after | 48.0 °C | 12 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 89 |
| 27 Aug after | 47.4 °C | 14 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 78 |
| 28 Aug after | 47.4 °C | 16 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 69 |
| 29 Aug after | 47.7 °C | 13 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 74 |
| 30 Aug after | 48.2 °C | 12 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 72 |
| 31 Aug after | 48.4 °C | 11 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 87 |
| 1 Sept after | 43.9 °C | 14 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 86 |
| 2 Sept after | 44.9 °C | 15 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 3 Sept after | 45.6 °C | 11 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 70.9, a minimum humidity of 13% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 28.
FWI at the start
70.9
Minimum humidity
13 %
Days without rain
60+
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Al-Kahla fire, August 2025
1,935 ha
17 days
FWI 70.9
Min. humidity 13 %
Al-Kahla fire, September 2025
1,582 ha
41 days
FWI 69.2
Min. humidity 15 %
21 km away, in 2025
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Suq Al-Shoyokh fire, September 2018
1,295 ha
13 days
FWI 68.0
Min. humidity 12 %
127 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Al-Kahla fire, September 2021
1,171 ha
9 days
FWI 74.0
Min. humidity 10 %
20 km away, in 2021
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Al-Mejar Al-Kabir fire, September 2018
1,054 ha
43 days
FWI 67.3
Min. humidity 9 %
19 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.7 mm on 21 Oct.
Al-Kahla fire, September 2018
5,576 ha
33 days
FWI 67.3
Min. humidity 9 %
21 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.0 mm on 14 Oct.
What happened to them
- 5 days
- median duration
- 1,278 ha
- median area
- 100 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- 1.3 mm
- rain at the end (median; 4 of 28 had it)
It was 1.5 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 17 days, against 5 days.
Only 6 of its 28 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 24 of 28, 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 1.3 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
—first rain
—no rain in ten days
49km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 24 Aug, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 4 of 28, with a median of 1.3 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 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 · 1 Aug 2025
After · 31 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 19 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 100 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 80: 5.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak100 µg/m³
Days over the guideline15 days
PM10536 µg/m³
Optical depth1.06
WHO 15
6 Aug9 Aug12 Aug15 Aug18 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 · 276Every 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
- 13,270 haAl-KahlaJune 2018 · 69 days · 9 km away
- 5,834 haAl-Kahla13 July 2022 · 22 days · 15 km away
- 3,563 haAl-Kahla14 March 2025 · 12 days · 16 km away
- 2,797 haAl-Kahla15 March 2018 · 3 days · 18 km away
- 3,138 haAl-KahlaJanuary 2016 · 3 days · 19 km away
- 2,798 haAl-KahlaAugust 2021 · 22 days · 20 km away
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 8 August 2025 to 24 August 2025 (17 days). The perimeter dates it from 8 August 2025 to 17 August 2025.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,935 hectares (19.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Al-Kahla (1,788 ha, 0.5 %); Al-Mejar Al-Kabir (150 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 50.6 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 92, 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.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 28. Their median duration was 5 days and their median area 1,278 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 6 of its 28 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 24 of 28, 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 1.3 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.
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 17 August 2025 → 24 August 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 8 August 2025 to 17 August 2025. 276 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.