Cizre fire, May 2021 Cizre
The fire started on 6 May 2021 in Cizre, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 243 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 104th largest in Şırnak since 2016 (of 192 with a page). Number 75 in Türkiye in 2021, of 138.
The power measured by the satellite is low (7.6 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
- 243ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 6 May 2021 – 6 May 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 6 May
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 7
- in a single hotspot: 8 MW
- Danger at start
- 40
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 30MW
- 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 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 68 ha in 2016, 35 ha in 2018, 190 ha in 2019, 177 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 243 ha that had burned before.
- 190 ha Cizre fire, June 2019 538 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 177 ha Cizre fire, June 2020 664 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 68 ha Cizre fire, July 2016 1,346 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 35 ha Cizre fire, July 2018 277 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
244 ha reached on 6 May0.6 %
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 land97 %
- Agricultural areas2.9 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 May | 31.5 °C | 17 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 7 May after | 28.3 °C | 27 % | 33 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 37 |
| 8 May after | 31.4 °C | 21 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 9 May after | 33.0 °C | 15 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 10 May after | 32.6 °C | 13 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 11 May after | 30.9 °C | 5 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 12 May after | 34.4 °C | 9 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 13 May after | 36.0 °C | 7 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 14 May after | 37.7 °C | 3 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 15 May after | 37.1 °C | 4 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 16 May after | 37.0 °C | 8 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
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 9 May 2021 the air beside the fire reached 28 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 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 · 7Every 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 · 27 km away
- 2,661 haŞırnak merkez Şırnak10 July 2018 · 6 days · 28 km away
- 1,682 haEruhAugust 2017 · 3 days · 30 km away
- 1,457 haŞırnak merkez Şırnak26 June 2021 · 5 days · 30 km away
- 5,712 haGüçlükonak2 August 2020 · 7 days · 32 km away
- 1,596 haGüçlükonak18 August 2020 · 6 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Cizre fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 6 May 2021 and 6 May 2021: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 243 hectares (2.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Cizre (244 ha, 0.6 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 14.9 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 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 28 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.