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TR · Türkiye ·

Bulanık fire, 30 August 2024 Bulanık, Karaçoban

Out · last detection 30 Aug 2024, 22:12 UTC

The fire started on 30 August 2024 in Bulanık, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 198 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 18th largest in Muş since 2016 (of 35 with a page). Number 147 in Türkiye in 2024, of 271.

The power measured by the satellite is low (10.2 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: Bulanık · 2024Bayburt merkez · 2022Malazgirt · 2024Bulanık · 2024

Burnt area
198ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
30 Aug 2024 – 30 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
30 Aug
2024
Heat detections
4
in a single hotspot: 10 MW
Danger at start
25
High · FWI index
Average daily power
15MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Aug30 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

30 Aug 2024 · 15 MW · 4

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
26km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 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

  1. Bulanık 80,540 inhabitants · 20.9 km from the centre where it started
    198 ha reached on 30 Aug
    0.1 %
  2. Karaçoban 23,246 inhabitants · 7.6 km from the centre
    0 ha reached on 30 Aug
    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

  • Other natural land59 %
  • Agricultural areas41 %

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)
30 Aug 31.0 °C 26 % 26 km/h 1.2 mm High 25
31 Aug after 31.4 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.3 mm High 32
1 Sept after 31.6 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Sept after 31.6 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Sept after 32.5 °C 11 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Sept after 32.0 °C 9 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
5 Sept after 30.9 °C 16 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Sept after 27.6 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.6 mm High 38
7 Sept after 27.1 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
8 Sept after 28.2 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Sept after 29.0 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 38

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 25.3, a minimum humidity of 26% and 12 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 32.

FWI at the start 25.3
Minimum humidity 26 %
Days without rain 12
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Bulanık fire, August 2024
630 ha 6 days FWI 25.7 Min. humidity 25 % 8 km away, in 2024

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

1 day
median duration
207 ha
median area
3 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.0 mm
rain at the end (median; 18 of 32 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (198 ha against a median of 207 ha) and lasted 1 day, against 1 day.

In 14 of 32, 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 2.0 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
26km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 30 Aug, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 18 of 32, with a median of 2.0 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.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Aug 2024
After · 6 Sept 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 29 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 15 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak15 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1032 µg/m³
Optical depth0.21
28 Aug30 Aug1 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 · 4Every 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 Bulanık fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 30 August 2024 and 30 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 198 hectares (2.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bulanık (198 ha, 0.1 %); Karaçoban (0 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire came within 7.6 km of the centre of Karaçoban, the closest of the areas it touched. 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 31.0 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 26 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, 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: 32. Their median duration was 1 day and their median area 207 ha; 3 % went past 1,000 ha. In 14 of 32, 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 2.0 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
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. 4 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.