How long did the Cizre fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 9 June 2020 and 9 June 2020: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 664 hectares (6.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cizre (643 ha, 1.4 %); Silopi (23 ha, 0.0 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 15.5 km of Cizre. 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 38.7 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 18 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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.

TR · Türkiye · 2020-06-09 → 2020-06-09

Cizre fire, June 2020 Cizre, Silopi

Out · last detection 9 Jun 2020, 22:43 UTC

The fire started on 9 June 2020 in Cizre, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 664 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 23th largest in Şırnak since 2016 (of 192 with a page). Number 25 in Türkiye in 2020, of 212.

The power measured by the satellite is low (3.3 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: 664ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 1day; 9 Jun 2020 – 9 Jun 2020
Municipalities hit: 2; districts
Started on: 9 Jun; 2020
Heat detections: 8; in a single hotspot: 3 MW
Danger at start: 47; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 24MW; sum of detected power

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Jun9 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

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

The weather it burned in

39°high

18km/h · peak gust

8%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

62% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 129 ha in 2016, 1 ha in 2018, 402 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 414 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Cizre 143,124 inhabitants · 15.5 km from the town where it started

643 ha reached on 9 Jun

1.4 %
Silopi 134,754 inhabitants · 16.2 km from the town

23 ha

0.0 %

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

Other natural land78 %
Scrub and transitional woodland21 %
Agricultural areas0.8 %

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)
9 Jun	38.7 °C	8 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
10 Jun after	38.7 °C	7 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
11 Jun after	37.9 °C	11 %	35 km/h	0.2 mm	Extreme 57
12 Jun after	33.1 °C	16 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
13 Jun after	31.7 °C	17 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
14 Jun after	34.4 °C	14 %	48 km/h	0.2 mm	Extreme 56
15 Jun after	33.4 °C	20 %	40 km/h	0.9 mm	Very high 43
16 Jun after	39.2 °C	14 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
17 Jun after	37.5 °C	9 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
18 Jun after	38.1 °C	12 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
19 Jun after	33.6 °C	19 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 2 Jun 2020

After · 16 Jun 2020

Before After

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 10 June 2020 the air beside the fire reached 21 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak21 µg/m³

Days over the guideline2 days

PM1041 µg/m³

WHO 15

789101112

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 · 8Every 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

All fires in Türkiye ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Cizre fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 9 June 2020 and 9 June 2020: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 664 hectares (6.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cizre (643 ha, 1.4 %); Silopi (23 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 15.5 km of Cizre. 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 38.7 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 18 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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

OGM · Orman Genel Müdürlüğü ↗
AFAD ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned