Derik fire, July 2020 Derik
The fire started on 5 July 2020 in Derik, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 359 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 64th largest in Mardin since 2016 (of 131 with a page). Number 63 in Türkiye in 2020, of 212.
The power measured by the satellite is low (3.1 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
- 359ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 5 Jul 2020 – 8 Jul 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 5 Jul
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 6
- in a single hotspot: 3 MW
- Danger at start
- 55
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 14MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
26% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 94 ha in 2019.
What happened to each town
-
360 ha reached on 5 Jul0.3 %
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 land85 %
- Agricultural areas15 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 Jul | 37.8 °C | 12 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 6 Jul | 38.6 °C | 14 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 7 Jul | 39.0 °C | 14 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 8 Jul | 36.6 °C | 16 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 9 Jul after | 38.1 °C | 16 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 10 Jul after | 38.9 °C | 10 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 11 Jul after | 36.8 °C | 19 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 12 Jul after | 37.9 °C | 16 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 13 Jul after | 35.8 °C | 16 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 14 Jul after | 35.6 °C | 18 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 15 Jul after | 38.0 °C | 14 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 16 Jul after | 38.9 °C | 11 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 17 Jul after | 38.7 °C | 13 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 18 Jul after | 38.6 °C | 12 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 6 July 2020 the air beside the fire reached 22 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 6Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Derik fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 5 July 2020 and 8 July 2020: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 359 hectares (3.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Derik (360 ha, 0.3 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 14.8 km of Derik. 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 39.0 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 67, 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
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.