Skip to content
worldfires
en
TR · Türkiye ·

Balışeyh fire, August 2024 Balışıh · Balışeyh, Kırıkkale (merkez)

Out · last detection 12 Aug 2024, 10:31 UTC

The fire started on 12 August 2024 in Balışeyh, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 125 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

Number 216 in Türkiye in 2024, of 271.

The power measured by the satellite is low (24.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Gemerek · 2024Develi · 2024Keskin · 2016Delice · 2016

Burnt area
125ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
12 Aug 2024 – 12 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
12 Aug
2024
Heat detections
3
in a single hotspot: 24 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Average daily power
36MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Aug12 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

12 Aug 2024 · 36 MW · 3

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
42km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 22 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Balışeyh Balışıh 7,221 inhabitants · 9.8 km from the centre where it started
    113 ha reached on 12 Aug
    0.2 %
  2. Kırıkkale (merkez) Kırıkkale Merkez 186,960 inhabitants · 16.3 km from the centre
    12 ha
    0.0 %

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

  • Agricultural areas95 %
  • Other natural land5.0 %

Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.

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)
12 Aug 30.0 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
13 Aug after 31.5 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Aug after 32.8 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Aug after 31.1 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Aug after 27.3 °C 24 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Aug after 27.2 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Aug after 30.2 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Aug after 35.4 °C 11 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Aug after 36.2 °C 12 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Aug after 37.2 °C 8 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Aug after 34.3 °C 17 % 33 km/h 1.1 mm Very high 41

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 36.5, a minimum humidity of 23% and rain the day before. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 26.

FWI at the start 36.5
Minimum humidity 23 %
Days without rain 0
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Gemerek fire, September 2024
126 ha 1 day FWI 36.5 Min. humidity 23 % 243 km away, in 2024

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.1 mm on 19 Sept.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

1 day
median duration
218 ha
median area
12 %
went past 1,000 ha
4.7 mm
rain at the end (median; 16 of 26 had it)

It stayed below its twins: 125 ha against a median of 218 ha. It lasted 1 day, against 1 day.

In 10 of 26, 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 4.7 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

1.1 mmfirst rain
22 Aug10 days after it ended
42km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 12 Aug, and on 22 Aug 1.1 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 16 of 26, with a median of 4.7 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.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Aug 2024
After · 19 Aug 2024

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 14 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 7 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak7 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1010 µg/m³
Optical depth0.47
10 Aug12 Aug14 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 · 3Every 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 Türkiye

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Balışeyh fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 12 August 2024 and 12 August 2024: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 125 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Balışeyh (113 ha, 0.2 %); Kırıkkale (merkez) (12 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Balışeyh and came within 9.8 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 30.0 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class High.
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.
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: 26. Their median duration was 1 day and their median area 218 ha; 12 % went past 1,000 ha. In 10 of 26, 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 4.7 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: 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.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

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
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 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. 3 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 (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.