Burned area
satellite only5,712ha
Perimeter published by EFFIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- perimeter revised on 26 January 2022
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
TR · Türkiye · –
Güçlükonak fire, 2 August 2020 Güçlükonak, Şırnak merkez
Out · last detection 8 Aug 2020, 09:58 UTC
The fire started on 2 August 2020 in Güçlükonak, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 5,712 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the largest fire in Şırnak since 2016 (of 192 with a page). The largest in Türkiye in 2020, of 212.
The power measured by the satellite is low (23.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only7days
2 Aug 2020 to 8 Aug 2020: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 8 Aug 2020, 09:58 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only2 Aug 2020
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 2 Aug 2020
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only144
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 23 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 2 Aug 2020 – 8 Aug 2020
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only290MW
Total radiative power on 4 August 2020; hotspots that day: 33.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 4 Aug 2020
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model59.8FWI · extreme
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 41.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 2 Aug 2020, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model33.0°C · 13% RH
High of 33.0 °C and minimum humidity of 13% on 6 August 2020; gusts of 52 km/h on 2 August 2020.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 2 Aug 2020 – 8 Aug 2020
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
-
· reconstructed pressCross-check with press and agencies publishedJINNEWS · Polen Ekoloji (boletin agosto 2020)
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
· reconstructed perimeterEFFIS (Copernicus) revises the perimeter
What was saved on 24 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 5,712 ha
- Dates
- 2 Aug 2020 – 8 Aug 2020
- Name
- Güçlükonak
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/guclukonak-2020-08-2?v=2026-10-24A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire guclukonak-2020-08-2.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-08-02 | 13 | 25 | 31.5 | 22.2 | 15 | 21.1 | 52.2 | 0 | 59.8 | extremo | 1 |
| 2020-08-03 | 22 | 64 | 31.8 | 20.5 | 16 | 10.9 | 31 | 0 | 46.9 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-08-04 | 33 | 290 | 32 | 26.5 | 16 | 13.1 | 34.2 | 0 | 49.3 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-08-05 | 41 | 142 | 31.1 | 26.3 | 16 | 12.7 | 33.1 | 0.1 | 48.4 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-08-06 | 17 | 120 | 33 | 25.6 | 13 | 17.7 | 46.1 | 0 | 54.5 | extremo | 1 |
| 2020-08-07 | 10 | 40 | 33 | 24.1 | 14 | 17.4 | 44.3 | 0 | 54.4 | extremo | 1 |
| 2020-08-08 | 8 | 93 | 32 | 25.4 | 13 | 16.6 | 42.8 | 0 | 53.6 | extremo | 1 |
| 2020-08-09 | 0 | 0 | 31.8 | 25.8 | 14 | 14 | 36.4 | 0 | 50.8 | extremo | 0 |
| 2020-08-10 | 0 | 0 | 30 | 23.8 | 23 | 18.7 | 47.5 | 0 | 49.8 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-08-11 | 0 | 0 | 29.8 | 23.1 | 18 | 13.8 | 36 | 0 | 44.7 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-08-12 | 0 | 0 | 31.5 | 23.3 | 20 | 16.1 | 40.7 | 0 | 47.4 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-08-13 | 0 | 0 | 31.8 | 23 | 17 | 16.5 | 41.4 | 0 | 48 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-08-14 | 0 | 0 | 31.7 | 22.8 | 16 | 14.4 | 35.3 | 0 | 45.9 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-08-15 | 0 | 0 | 31 | 20.3 | 19 | 12 | 30.6 | 0.1 | 43.6 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-08-16 | 0 | 0 | 31 | 23.1 | 20 | 15.3 | 39.2 | 0 | 47.3 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-08-17 | 0 | 0 | 30.5 | 24.4 | 13 | 17.3 | 43.2 | 0 | 49.8 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-08-18 | 0 | 0 | 31.2 | 24.9 | 12 | 13.7 | 35.6 | 0 | 47.1 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-08-19 | 0 | 0 | 31.8 | 26.1 | 11 | 14.1 | 36.4 | 0 | 48.9 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-08-20 | 0 | 0 | 31.9 | 25.5 | 9 | 13.3 | 35.3 | 0 | 49.9 | muy_alto | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: EFFIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 5,712ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 7days
- 2 Aug 2020 – 8 Aug 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 2 Aug
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 144
- in a single hotspot: 23 MW
- Danger at start
- 60
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 110MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
2 Aug8 Aug
8 Aug 2020
How it evolved, day by day
2 Aug
4 Aug
6 Aug
8 Aug
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
33°high
52km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity
It had gone 41 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
32% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,200 ha in 2016, 1,114 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,856 ha that had burned before.
- 912 ha Güçlükonak fire, July 2016 1,105 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 467 ha Şırnak merkez fire, July 2018 2,661 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 378 ha Güçlükonak fire, July 2018 377 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 287 ha Güçlükonak fire, July 2016 1,414 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 157 ha Şırnak merkez fire, August 2018 685 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 112 ha Güçlükonak fire, August 2018 142 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
3,583 ha reached on 2 Aug7.2 %
-
2,138 ha reached on 2 Aug1.2 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
What burned
- Scrub and transitional woodland48 %
- Broadleaved forest26 %
- Mixed forest19 %
- Other natural land6.7 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2020Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20
Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
Checked against the press
Checked on 29 September 2026We checked this page against 2 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:
- According to the sources, several fires that ended up merging:
- Meseta de Şerevan / Çemê Mezin / Xare Kuna y otros 3 puntos 1 August 2020
- Kırkkuyu (Deşta Lala) 7 August 2020
- Şêwe Mezrası 10 August 2020
Sources
- Haziran ve Eylül ayları arasında Şırnak'ta 40 kez yangın yaşandı — JINNEWS
- Ağustos 2020 Bülteni — Polen Ekoloji (boletin agosto 2020)
Official figures are measured differently from satellite ones and sometimes cover only part of the fire.
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)
Started with Strong wind: 38 % of the area in Türkiye
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Aug | 31.5 °C | 15 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 3 Aug | 31.8 °C | 16 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 4 Aug | 32.0 °C | 16 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 5 Aug | 31.1 °C | 16 % | 33 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 48 |
| 6 Aug | 33.0 °C | 13 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 7 Aug | 33.0 °C | 14 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 8 Aug | 32.0 °C | 13 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 9 Aug after | 31.8 °C | 14 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 10 Aug after | 30.0 °C | 23 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 11 Aug after | 29.8 °C | 18 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 12 Aug after | 31.5 °C | 20 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 13 Aug after | 31.8 °C | 17 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 14 Aug after | 31.7 °C | 16 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 15 Aug after | 31.0 °C | 19 % | 31 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 44 |
| 16 Aug after | 31.0 °C | 20 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 17 Aug after | 30.5 °C | 13 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 18 Aug after | 31.2 °C | 12 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 19 Aug after | 31.8 °C | 11 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 20 Aug after | 31.9 °C | 9 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 59.8, a minimum humidity of 15% and 41 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 15.
FWI at the start
59.8
Minimum humidity
15 %
Days without rain
41
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Güçlükonak fire, 2 August 2020
5,712 ha
7 days
FWI 59.8
Min. humidity 15 %
Midyat fire, August 2016
578 ha
1 day
FWI 58.5
Min. humidity 16 %
51 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Telafar fire, July 2019
1,189 ha
4 days
FWI 60.2
Min. humidity 14 %
126 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Şırnak merkez fire, August 2016
560 ha
3 days
FWI 57.0
Min. humidity 13 %
26 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Midyat fire, July 2016
562 ha
1 day
FWI 59.9
Min. humidity 13 %
63 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Cizre fire, August 2016
156 ha
1 day
FWI 56.4
Min. humidity 15 %
27 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
What happened to them
- 1 day
- median duration
- 560 ha
- median area
- 27 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- —
- rain at the end (median; 0 of 15 had it)
It was 10.2 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 7 days, against 1 day.
None of its 15 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
—first rain
—no rain in ten days
52km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 8 Aug, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. None of its 15 twins had rain when they ended.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 26 Jul 2020
After · 15 Aug 2020
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 5 August 2020 the air beside the fire reached 29 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak29 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM1044 µg/m³
WHO 15
31 Jul3 Aug6 Aug9 Aug12 Aug
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 · 144Every 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 time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 2,661 haŞırnak merkez Şırnak10 July 2018 · 9 days · 6 km away
- 1,596 haGüçlükonak18 August 2020 · 6 days · 7 km away
- 2,466 haGüçlükonak18 July 2020 · 4 days · 8 km away
- 1,414 haGüçlükonak2 July 2016 · 7 days · 10 km away
- 1,368 haŞırnak merkez Şırnak14 September 2020 · 7 days · 14 km away
- 1,682 haEruhAugust 2017 · 4 days · 20 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Güçlükonak fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 2 August 2020 and 8 August 2020: 7 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 5,712 hectares (57.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Güçlükonak (3,583 ha, 7.2 %); Şırnak merkez (2,138 ha, 1.2 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Güçlükonak and came within 7.9 km of its centre. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 15. Their median duration was 1 day and their median area 560 ha; 27 % went past 1,000 ha. None of its 15 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.
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 · Emergency number and official warnings
Satellite cross-check
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 144 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Checked against news and agencies: 2 confirmed sources.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.