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Darende fire, September 2024 Darende, Elbistan

Out · last measured on 27 Sept 2024

The fire started on 27 September 2024 in Darende, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 910 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the largest fire in Malatya since 2016 (of 35 with a page). Number 15 in Türkiye in 2024, of 271.

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
910ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
27 Sept 2024 – 27 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
27 Sept
2024
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

22°high
37km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 9.6 mm on 1 Oct.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Darende 29,045 inhabitants · 13.6 km from the town where it started
    571 ha
    0.4 %
  2. Elbistan 142,548 inhabitants · 30.7 km from the town
    340 ha
    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 land90 %
  • Agricultural areas10 %

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)
27 Sept 22.5 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
28 Sept after 23.2 °C 14 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
29 Sept after 23.3 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Sept after 22.2 °C 25 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
1 Oct after 15.9 °C 49 % 40 km/h 9.6 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Sept 2024
After · 4 Oct 2024

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 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 13 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak13 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1017 µg/m³
Optical depth0.18
252627282930
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Türkiye ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Darende fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 27 September 2024 and 27 September 2024: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 910 hectares (9.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Darende (571 ha, 0.4 %); Elbistan (340 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 13.6 km of Darende. 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 22.5 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, class 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
What do you think is wrong?

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.