Skip to content
worldfires
TR · Türkiye · →

Dargeçit fire, July 2017 Dargeçit, Güçlükonak

Out · last detection 30 Jul 2017, 10:17 UTC

The fire started on 30 July 2017 in Dargeçit, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 434 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 53th largest in Mardin since 2016 (of 131 with a page). Number 26 in Türkiye in 2017, of 98.

The power measured by the satellite is low (11.9 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
434ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
30 Jul 2017 – 30 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
30 Jul
2017
Heat detections
4
in a single hotspot: 12 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
30MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Jul30 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

30

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
18km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 45 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

51% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 220 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Dargeçit 28,555 inhabitants · 12.5 km from the town where it started
    428 ha reached on 30 Jul
    0.8 %
  2. Güçlükonak 13,091 inhabitants · 18.3 km from the town
    8 ha
    0.0 %

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 land65 %
  • Agricultural areas29 %
  • Other land cover5.3 %

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)
30 Jul 41.4 °C 13 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
31 Jul after 42.5 °C 9 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
1 Aug after 43.9 °C 14 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
2 Aug after 43.8 °C 16 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
3 Aug after 42.4 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
4 Aug after 41.8 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
5 Aug after 40.3 °C 11 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
6 Aug after 40.2 °C 14 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
7 Aug after 39.9 °C 15 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
8 Aug after 41.1 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
9 Aug after 42.5 °C 9 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Jul 2017
After · 6 Aug 2017

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 1 August 2017 the air beside the fire reached 25 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak25 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1040 µg/m³
2829303112
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 · 4Every 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 Dargeçit fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 30 July 2017 and 30 July 2017: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 434 hectares (4.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Dargeçit (428 ha, 0.8 %); Güçlükonak (8 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 12.5 km of Dargeçit. 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 41.4 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 18 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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
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.