How long did the Çukurca fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 18 July 2020 and 20 July 2020: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 210 hectares (2.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Çukurca (204 ha, 0.2 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 11.7 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 35.9 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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 · 2020-07-18 → 2020-07-20

Çukurca fire, 18 July 2020 Çukurca

Out · last detection 20 Jul 2020, 09:14 UTC

The fire started on 18 July 2020 in Çukurca, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 210 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 51th largest in Hakkâri since 2016 (of 111 with a page). Number 110 in Türkiye in 2020, of 212.

The power measured by the satellite is low (8.9 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: 210ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 3days; 18 Jul 2020 – 20 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 18 Jul; 2020
Heat detections: 3; in a single hotspot: 9 MW
Danger at start: 41; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 11MW; sum of detected power

Play back 20 Jul 2020

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jul20 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1820

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

The weather it burned in

36°high

40km/h · peak gust

12%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

67% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 139 ha in 2016, 100 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 140 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Çukurca 17,216 inhabitants · 11.7 km from the town where it started

204 ha reached on 18 Jul

0.2 %

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

Other natural land63 %
Scrub and transitional woodland21 %
Agricultural areas16 %

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)
18 Jul	33.1 °C	17 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
19 Jul	34.1 °C	12 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
20 Jul	35.9 °C	12 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
21 Jul after	35.1 °C	14 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
22 Jul after	33.7 °C	13 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
23 Jul after	32.3 °C	18 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
24 Jul after	32.0 °C	20 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
25 Jul after	34.1 °C	20 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
26 Jul after	33.6 °C	17 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
27 Jul after	34.4 °C	20 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
28 Jul after	34.5 °C	21 %	47 km/h	0.4 mm	Very high 42
29 Jul after	34.1 °C	17 %	56 km/h	0.4 mm	Very high 47
30 Jul after	33.6 °C	14 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 11 Jul 2020

After · 27 Jul 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 23 July 2020 the air beside the fire reached 27 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 20: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak27 µg/m³

Days over the guideline1 day

PM1038 µg/m³

WHO 15

1617181920212223

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 · 3Every 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 Çukurca fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 18 July 2020 and 20 July 2020: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 210 hectares (2.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Çukurca (204 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 11.7 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 35.9 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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