İdil fire, September 2019 Cizre, İdil
The fire started on 29 September 2019 in İdil, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 501 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 37th largest in Şırnak since 2016 (of 192 with a page). Number 21 in Türkiye in 2019, of 138.
The power measured by the satellite is low (24.9 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
- 501ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 29 Sept 2019 – 29 Sept 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 29 Sept
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 7
- in a single hotspot: 25 MW
- Danger at start
- 42
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 84MW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
42% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 212 ha in 2016.
What happened to each town
-
Cizre 143,124 inhabitants · 6.5 km from the town438 ha reached on 29 Sept1.0 %
-
64 ha reached on 29 Sept0.1 %
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
- Agricultural areas100 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 Sept | 34.4 °C | 23 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 30 Sept after | 34.2 °C | 17 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 1 Oct after | 34.5 °C | 14 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 2 Oct after | 35.9 °C | 17 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 3 Oct after | 34.9 °C | 19 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 4 Oct after | 34.0 °C | 19 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 5 Oct after | 33.9 °C | 22 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 6 Oct after | 32.3 °C | 22 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 7 Oct after | 30.6 °C | 28 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 8 Oct after | 33.2 °C | 24 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 9 Oct after | 34.2 °C | 24 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
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.
Detections table · 7Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 2,466 haGüçlükonak18 July 2020 · 4 days · 10 km away
- 2,661 haŞırnak merkez Şırnak10 July 2018 · 6 days · 12 km away
- 1,368 haŞırnak merkez Şırnak14 September 2020 · 6 days · 17 km away
- 5,712 haGüçlükonak2 August 2020 · 7 days · 18 km away
- 1,596 haGüçlükonak18 August 2020 · 6 days · 23 km away
- 1,414 haGüçlükonak2 July 2016 · 4 days · 26 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the İdil fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 29 September 2019 and 29 September 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 501 hectares (5.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cizre (438 ha, 1.0 %); İdil (64 ha, 0.1 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 6.5 km of Cizre. 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 34.4 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 27 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.