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TR · Türkiye ·

Kale fire, June 2024 Kale

Out · last detection 14 Jun 2024, 10:36 UTC

The fire started on 14 June 2024 in Kale, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 111 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 15th largest in Denizli since 2016 (of 18 with a page). Number 247 in Türkiye in 2024, of 271.

The power measured by the satellite is low (11.3 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
111ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
14 Jun 2024 – 14 Jun 2024
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
14 Jun
2024
Heat detections
3
in a single hotspot: 11 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
27MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Jun14 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

14 Jun 2024 · 27 MW · 3

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
58km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 18 Jun.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Kale 19,202 inhabitants · 13.7 km from the centre where it started
    111 ha reached on 14 Jun
    0.2 %

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

  • Coniferous forest74 %
  • Agricultural areas18 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland8.2 %

Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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

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: 28 % of the area in Türkiye

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
14 Jun 39.3 °C 16 % 58 km/h 1.5 mm Very high 49
15 Jun after 35.9 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Jun after 37.0 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Jun after 37.3 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
18 Jun after 37.6 °C 22 % 34 km/h 1.0 mm Very high 39

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 49.3, a minimum humidity of 16% and 5 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 27.

FWI at the start 49.3
Minimum humidity 16 %
Days without rain 5
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Gördes fire, August 2024
5,292 ha 5 days FWI 48.8 Min. humidity 17 % 168 km away, in 2024

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.7 mm on 26 Aug.

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
311 ha
median area
15 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.7 mm
rain at the end (median; 12 of 27 had it)

It stayed below its twins: 111 ha against a median of 311 ha. It lasted 1 day, against 2 days.

In 15 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

1.0 mmfirst rain
18 Jun4 days after it ended
58km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 14 Jun, and on 18 Jun 1.0 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 12 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 · 7 Jun 2024
After · 21 Jun 2024

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 13 June 2024 the air beside the fire reached 22 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak22 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1093 µg/m³
Optical depth0.41
12 Jun14 Jun16 Jun
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 · 3Every 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 Kale fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 14 June 2024 and 14 June 2024: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 111 hectares (1.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kale (111 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Kale and came within 13.7 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 39.3 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 58 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.
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 2 days and their median area 311 ha; 15 % went past 1,000 ha. In 15 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. 3 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.