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Çukurca fire, 31 August 2016 Çukurca

Out · last detection 1 Sept 2016, 10:42 UTC

The fire started on 31 August 2016 in Çukurca, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 860 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 4th largest in Hakkâri since 2016 (of 111 with a page). Number 39 in Türkiye in 2016, of 223.

The power measured by the satellite is low (19.5 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
860ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
31 Aug 2016 – 1 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
31 Aug
2016
Heat detections
12
in a single hotspot: 20 MW
Danger at start
50
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
143MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Sept 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Aug1 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

311

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
60km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months 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. Çukurca 17,216 inhabitants · 16.4 km from the town where it started
    860 ha reached on 31 Aug
    1.0 %

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 land54 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland39 %
  • Broadleaved forest5.6 %
  • Agricultural areas2.1 %

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)
31 Aug 32.5 °C 15 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
1 Sept 30.4 °C 16 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
2 Sept after 27.4 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Sept after 27.4 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Sept after 26.6 °C 23 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Sept after 25.9 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
6 Sept after 26.1 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
7 Sept after 26.5 °C 22 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Sept after 26.0 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
9 Sept after 27.9 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
10 Sept after 28.2 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
11 Sept after 28.3 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Sept after 28.0 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Sept after 27.3 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Aug 2016
After · 8 Sept 2016

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 30 August 2016 the air beside the fire reached 45 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 38: 2.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak45 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM1070 µg/m³
293031123456
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 · 12Every 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 Çukurca fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 31 August 2016 and 1 September 2016: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 860 hectares (8.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Çukurca (860 ha, 1.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 16.4 km of Çukurca. 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 32.5 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, class Extreme.
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
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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.