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TR · Türkiye · –

Hakkari merkez fire, September 2017 Hakkâri · Hakkari merkez

Out · last detection 24 Sept 2017, 09:27 UTC

The fire started on 22 September 2017 in Hakkari merkez, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 125 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 85th largest in Hakkâri since 2016 (of 111 with a page). Number 82 in Türkiye in 2017, of 98.

Burnt area
125ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
22 Sept 2017 – 24 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
22 Sept
2017
Heat detections
5
in a single hotspot: 59 MW
Danger at start
59
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
58MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Sept24 Sept
24 Sept 2017

How it evolved, day by day

22 Sept 2017 · 28 MW · 2 24 Sept 2017 · 87 MW · 3
22 Sept 24 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
66km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 28 Sept.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Hakkari merkez Hakkâri 60,098 inhabitants · 19.4 km from the centre where it started
    125 ha reached on 22 Sept
    0.1 %

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

  • Other natural land73 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland27 %

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)

Started with Extreme FWI: 61 % of the area in Türkiye Strong wind: 28 % of the area in Türkiye 60 days without rain: 10 % of the area in Türkiye

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
22 Sept 28.0 °C 23 % 66 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
23 Sept 26.1 °C 18 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Sept 25.3 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
25 Sept after 25.8 °C 17 % 43 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 50
26 Sept after 25.6 °C 22 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
27 Sept after 24.8 °C 30 % 66 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Sept after 23.2 °C 35 % 53 km/h 1.5 mm High 36

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 58.9, a minimum humidity of 23% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 27.

FWI at the start 58.9
Minimum humidity 23 %
Days without rain 60+
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Çukurca fire, September 2016
114 ha 1 day FWI 57.1 Min. humidity 23 % 26 km away, in 2016

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

3 days
median duration
193 ha
median area
7 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.7 mm
rain at the end (median; 2 of 27 had it)

It stayed below its twins: 125 ha against a median of 193 ha. It lasted 3 days, against 3 days.

In 25 of 27, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.7 mm.

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

1.5 mmfirst rain
28 Sept4 days after it ended
66km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 24 Sept, and on 28 Sept 1.5 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 2 of 27, with a median of 2.7 mm.

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.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Sept 2017
After · 1 Oct 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 21 September 2017 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak20 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1039 µg/m³
20 Sept22 Sept24 Sept26 Sept
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 · 5Every 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 Hakkari merkez fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 22 September 2017 and 24 September 2017: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 125 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Hakkari merkez (125 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Hakkari merkez and came within 19.4 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 28.0 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 66 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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: 27. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 193 ha; 7 % went past 1,000 ha. In 25 of 27, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.7 mm.

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.

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 5 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.