Gercüş fire, August 2019 Gercüş
The fire started on 4 August 2019 in Gercüş, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 120 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 37th largest in Batman since 2016 (of 41 with a page). Number 113 in Türkiye in 2019, of 138.
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
- 120ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 4 Aug 2019 – 4 Aug 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 4 Aug
- 2019
- Danger at start
- 49
- Very high · FWI index
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
It had gone 48 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
-
120 ha0.1 %
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
- Other natural land79 %
- Agricultural areas21 %
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 Aug | 37.3 °C | 12 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 5 Aug after | 36.2 °C | 14 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 6 Aug after | 36.0 °C | 16 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 7 Aug after | 35.7 °C | 12 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 8 Aug after | 37.0 °C | 11 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 9 Aug after | 38.0 °C | 15 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 10 Aug after | 38.3 °C | 17 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 11 Aug after | 38.2 °C | 17 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 12 Aug after | 39.3 °C | 17 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 13 Aug after | 40.3 °C | 14 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 14 Aug after | 40.1 °C | 14 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
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 2 August 2019 the air beside the fire reached 23 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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)
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Gercüş fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 4 August 2019 and 4 August 2019: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 120 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Gercüş (120 ha, 0.1 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 18.7 km of Gercüş. 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 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 25 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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
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.