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Çukurca fire, 4 September 2021 Çukurca

Out · last detection 5 Sept 2021, 10:30 UTC

The fire started on 4 September 2021 in Çukurca, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 107 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 102th largest in Hakkâri since 2016 (of 111 with a page). Number 134 in Türkiye in 2021, of 138.

The power measured by the satellite is low (8.7 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
2days
4 Sept 2021 – 5 Sept 2021
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
4 Sept
2021
Heat detections
7
in a single hotspot: 9 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
28MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Sept 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Sept5 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

45

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
37km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 22 days 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 · 21.2 km from the town where it started
    107 ha reached on 4 Sept
    0.1 %

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

  • Broadleaved forest61 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland39 %

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)
4 Sept 30.7 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Sept 30.4 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Sept after 31.4 °C 13 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Sept after 32.6 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Sept after 32.8 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Sept after 32.4 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 Sept after 32.3 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Sept after 31.2 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Sept after 29.7 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
13 Sept after 29.4 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Sept after 30.2 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Sept after 30.1 °C 13 % 34 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 · 28 Aug 2021
After · 12 Sept 2021

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 2 September 2021 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak20 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1039 µg/m³
23456789101112
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 · 7Every 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 4 September 2021 and 5 September 2021: 2 days 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 Çukurca (107 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 21.2 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 30.7 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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
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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.