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Bismil fire, 7 October 2020 Bismil, Savur

Out · last detection 12 Oct 2020, 09:40 UTC

The fire started on 7 October 2020 in Bismil, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 819 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 16th largest in Diyarbakır since 2016 (of 110 with a page). Number 19 in Türkiye in 2020, of 212.

The power measured by the satellite is low (10.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
819ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
6days
7 Oct 2020 – 12 Oct 2020
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
7 Oct
2020
Heat detections
17
in a single hotspot: 10 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
68MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Oct 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Oct12 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

78101112

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
27km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Bismil 117,674 inhabitants · 32.6 km from the town where it started
    686 ha reached on 5 Oct
    0.4 %
  2. Savur 27,304 inhabitants · 17.4 km from the town
    133 ha
    0.2 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

  • Agricultural areas97 %
  • Other natural land2.8 %

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)
5 Oct 28.4 °C 16 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Oct 26.7 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Oct 25.8 °C 22 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Oct 25.2 °C 19 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Oct 25.7 °C 15 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Oct 27.0 °C 14 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Oct 28.8 °C 13 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Oct 29.4 °C 13 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Oct after 29.2 °C 13 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Oct after 29.5 °C 14 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Oct after 29.4 °C 13 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Oct after 29.2 °C 13 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Oct after 29.1 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Oct after 28.1 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Oct after 26.0 °C 14 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Oct after 27.0 °C 24 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Oct after 26.5 °C 25 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
22 Oct after 27.6 °C 19 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Oct after 27.3 °C 17 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Oct after 27.0 °C 17 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
25 Oct after 24.8 °C 18 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
26 Oct after 26.2 °C 14 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
27 Oct after 25.9 °C 16 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Oct after 24.4 °C 19 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Oct after 28.7 °C 13 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Sept 2020
After · 19 Oct 2020

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 20 October 2020 the air beside the fire reached 31 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 30: 2.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak31 µg/m³
Days over the guideline12 days
PM1056 µg/m³
345678910111213141516171819202122
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 · 17Every 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 Bismil fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 7 October 2020 and 12 October 2020: 6 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 819 hectares (8.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bismil (686 ha, 0.4 %); Savur (133 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 17.4 km of Savur. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.5 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 27 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, class Very 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.

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

Satellite cross-check

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.

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.