Cizre fire, July 2020 Cizre
The fire started on 16 July 2020 in Cizre, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 107 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 184th largest in Şırnak since 2016 (of 192 with a page). Number 193 in Türkiye in 2020, of 212.
The power measured by the satellite is low (13.0 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
- 107ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 16 Jul 2020 – 16 Jul 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 16 Jul
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 1
- in a single hotspot: 13 MW
- Danger at start
- 45
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 13MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
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
It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
47% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 50 ha in 2019.
What happened to each town
-
107 ha reached on 16 Jul0.2 %
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 areas99 %
- Other land cover0.9 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Jul | 41.0 °C | 15 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 17 Jul after | 41.1 °C | 15 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 18 Jul after | 41.4 °C | 17 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 19 Jul after | 41.8 °C | 8 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 20 Jul after | 43.2 °C | 7 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 21 Jul after | 42.8 °C | 9 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 22 Jul after | 42.5 °C | 10 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 23 Jul after | 41.5 °C | 17 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 24 Jul after | 41.8 °C | 16 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 25 Jul after | 41.4 °C | 17 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 26 Jul after | 41.9 °C | 14 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 14 July 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).
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 · 1Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 2,466 haGüçlükonak18 July 2020 · 4 days · 11 km away
- 2,661 haŞırnak merkez Şırnak10 July 2018 · 6 days · 13 km away
- 1,368 haŞırnak merkez Şırnak14 September 2020 · 6 days · 16 km away
- 5,712 haGüçlükonak2 August 2020 · 7 days · 19 km away
- 1,596 haGüçlükonak18 August 2020 · 6 days · 24 km away
- 1,414 haGüçlükonak2 July 2016 · 4 days · 27 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Cizre fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 16 July 2020 and 16 July 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 107 hectares (1.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Cizre (107 ha, 0.2 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 6.0 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 41.0 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 30 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
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.