Burned area
satellite only388ha
Perimeter published by EFFIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- perimeter revised on 26 January 2022
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
TR · Türkiye · –
Bitlis merkez fire, September 2020 Bitlis · Bitlis merkez
Out · last detection 13 Sept 2020, 22:43 UTC
The fire started on 3 September 2020 in Bitlis merkez, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 388 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 6th largest in Bitlis since 2016 (of 19 with a page). Number 56 in Türkiye in 2020, of 212.
The power measured by the satellite is low (15.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches 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 only11days
3 Sept 2020 to 13 Sept 2020: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 13 Sept 2020, 22:43 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 only3 Sept 2020
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 3 Sept 2020
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only34
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 16 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 3 Sept 2020 – 13 Sept 2020
+− 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 only46MW
Total radiative power on 3 September 2020; hotspots that day: 10.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 3 Sept 2020
+− 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
model41.9FWI · very high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 11.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 3 Sept 2020, 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
model33.3°C · 14% RH
High of 33.3 °C and minimum humidity of 14% on 13 September 2020; gusts of 50 km/h on 7 September 2020.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 3 Sept 2020 – 13 Sept 2020
- 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
-
· reconstructed perimeterEFFIS (Copernicus) revises the perimeter
What was saved on 24 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
- 388 ha
- Dates
- 3 Sept 2020 – 13 Sept 2020
- Name
- Bitlis merkez
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/bitlis-merkez-2020-09?v=2026-10-24A 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 bitlis-merkez-2020-09.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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-09-03 | 10 | 46 | 32.6 | 15.9 | 12 | 10 | 33.5 | 0 | 41.9 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-09-04 | 13 | 30 | 32.3 | 15 | 17 | 11 | 36 | 0 | 43.3 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-09-05 | 2 | 12 | 33.1 | 14.6 | 16 | 12 | 36.4 | 0 | 44.8 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-09-06 | 1 | 3 | 33.1 | 19.4 | 12 | 15 | 47.2 | 0 | 48.4 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-09-07 | 3 | 17 | 32.4 | 20.5 | 11 | 15.5 | 49.7 | 0 | 49.4 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-09-08 | 1 | 1 | 31.9 | 16.9 | 14 | 12.3 | 37.8 | 0 | 46.2 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-09-09 | 2 | 6 | 31.1 | 15.6 | 19 | 11.9 | 35.3 | 0 | 44 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-09-10 | 0 | 0 | 31.9 | 15.7 | 15 | 11.8 | 34.9 | 0 | 44.2 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-09-11 | 0 | 0 | 31.1 | 15.9 | 14 | 10.3 | 32 | 0 | 43 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-09-12 | 1 | 1 | 32.1 | 14.4 | 15 | 8.5 | 33.5 | 0 | 41.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-09-13 | 1 | 2 | 33.3 | 16.2 | 14 | 9.4 | 27 | 0 | 42.7 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-09-14 | 0 | 0 | 32.4 | 16.3 | 14 | 10.8 | 36 | 0 | 44.4 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-09-15 | 0 | 0 | 31.7 | 13.8 | 13 | 10.5 | 31.7 | 0 | 44.4 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-09-16 | 0 | 0 | 32 | 13.3 | 12 | 8.4 | 28.8 | 0 | 42.5 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-09-17 | 0 | 0 | 31.5 | 14 | 11 | 12.1 | 37.8 | 0 | 46.6 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-09-18 | 0 | 0 | 29.7 | 16.6 | 16 | 9.7 | 30.6 | 0 | 43.6 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-09-19 | 0 | 0 | 29.7 | 14.2 | 14 | 10.7 | 34.9 | 0 | 44.9 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-09-20 | 0 | 0 | 29.5 | 12.2 | 16 | 9.9 | 36 | 0 | 43.7 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-09-21 | 0 | 0 | 28.5 | 15.1 | 20 | 12 | 42.8 | 0.4 | 43 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-09-22 | 0 | 0 | 28.3 | 16 | 19 | 10.1 | 36.7 | 0 | 40.9 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-09-23 | 0 | 0 | 28.6 | 11.2 | 16 | 8.9 | 29.5 | 0 | 40 | muy_alto | 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: EFFIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 388ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 11days
- 3 Sept 2020 – 13 Sept 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 3 Sept
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 34
- in a single hotspot: 16 MW
- Danger at start
- 42
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 13MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
3 Sept13 Sept
13 Sept 2020
How it evolved, day by day
3 Sept
5 Sept
7 Sept
9 Sept
13 Sept
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
33°high
50km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity
It had gone 11 days 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
-
389 ha reached on 3 Sept0.4 %
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
- Scrub and transitional woodland44 %
- Other natural land32 %
- Broadleaved forest25 %
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)
Started with Very dry air: 48 % of the area in Türkiye
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Sept | 32.6 °C | 12 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 4 Sept | 32.3 °C | 17 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 5 Sept | 33.1 °C | 16 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 6 Sept | 33.1 °C | 12 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 7 Sept | 32.4 °C | 11 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 8 Sept | 31.9 °C | 14 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 9 Sept | 31.1 °C | 19 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 10 Sept | 31.9 °C | 15 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 11 Sept | 31.1 °C | 14 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 12 Sept | 32.1 °C | 15 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 13 Sept | 33.3 °C | 14 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 14 Sept after | 32.4 °C | 14 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 15 Sept after | 31.7 °C | 13 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 16 Sept after | 32.0 °C | 12 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 17 Sept after | 31.5 °C | 11 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 18 Sept after | 29.7 °C | 16 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 19 Sept after | 29.7 °C | 14 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 20 Sept after | 29.5 °C | 16 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 21 Sept after | 28.5 °C | 20 % | 43 km/h | 0.4 mm | Very high 43 |
| 22 Sept after | 28.3 °C | 19 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 23 Sept after | 28.6 °C | 16 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 41.9, a minimum humidity of 12% and 11 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 31.
FWI at the start
41.9
Minimum humidity
12 %
Days without rain
11
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Bitlis merkez fire, September 2020
388 ha
11 days
FWI 41.9
Min. humidity 12 %
Cizre fire, October 2024
279 ha
1 day
FWI 43.1
Min. humidity 12 %
108 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Bitlis merkez fire, August 2021
381 ha
6 days
FWI 44.1
Min. humidity 11 %
2 km away, in 2021
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Çınar fire, June 2026
164 ha
1 day
FWI 42.0
Min. humidity 12 %
160 km away, in 2026
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Bulanık fire, August 2024
162 ha
1 day
FWI 43.6
Min. humidity 12 %
114 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.0 mm on 11 Aug.
Şirvan fire, July 2020
149 ha
1 day
FWI 44.4
Min. humidity 12 %
43 km away, in 2020
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
What happened to them
- 2 days
- median duration
- 215 ha
- median area
- 10 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- 3.0 mm
- rain at the end (median; 9 of 31 had it)
It was 1.8 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 11 days, against 2 days.
Only 6 of its 31 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 22 of 31, 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 3.0 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
50km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 13 Sept, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 9 of 31, with a median of 3.0 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 · 27 Aug 2020
After · 20 Sept 2020
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 5 September 2020 the air beside the fire reached 29 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 20: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak29 µg/m³
Days over the guideline11 days
PM1050 µg/m³
WHO 15
1 Sept5 Sept9 Sept13 Sept17 Sept
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 · 34Every 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
- 1,003 haBitlis merkez Bitlis29 August 2020 · 4 days · 11 km away
- 518 haBitlis merkez Bitlis30 August 2021 · 3 days · 14 km away
- 425 haBitlis merkez BitlisJune 2021 · 3 days · 14 km away
- 418 haMutkiSeptember 2018 · 5 days · 17 km away
- 392 haBitlis merkez Bitlis8 August 2020 · 6 days · 29 km away
- 777 haKurtalan BeşiriAugust 2016 · 4 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Bitlis merkez fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 3 September 2020 to 13 September 2020 (11 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 September 2020 to 6 September 2020.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 388 hectares (3.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Bitlis merkez (389 ha, 0.4 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Bitlis merkez and came within 28.8 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 33.3 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.
- 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: 31. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 215 ha; 10 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 6 of its 31 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 22 of 31, 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 3.0 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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 3 September 2020 to 6 September 2020. 34 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.
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.