Karabağlar fire, August 2019 Menderes, Seferihisar, Karabağlar
The fire started on 18 August 2019 in Menderes, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 6,800 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 2th largest in İzmir since 2016 (of 68 with a page). Number 2 in Türkiye in 2019, of 138.
- Burnt area
- 6,800ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 3days
- 18 Aug 2019 – 20 Aug 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- districts
- Started on
- 18 Aug
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 405
- in a single hotspot: 208 MW
- Danger at start
- 59
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 6.9GW
- 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 31 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
-
Menderes 104,147 inhabitants · 7.8 km from the town5,431 ha reached on 18 Aug6.9 %
-
Seferihisar 44,526 inhabitants · 10.0 km from the town1,341 ha reached on 18 Aug3.4 %
-
48 ha reached on 18 Aug0.5 %
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
- Coniferous forest75 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland19 %
- Agricultural areas3.3 %
- Other natural land1.4 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub0.9 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
Checked against the press
Checked on 29 September 2026We checked this page against 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:
- Also known as
- İzmir yangını · Karabağlar Tırazlı yangını · Menderes ve Seferihisar orman yangını
Sources
- İzmir'in en büyük yangınıydı... 6 yıl sonra bölge nasıl değişti? — İz Gazete (cita a Anadolu Ajansı), 2 August 2025
- TMMOB İzmir: Yangınlarda 6 Bin 500 Hektarlık Orman Alanı Tahrip Oldu — Bianet (Türkçe), 28 August 2019
- İzmir Wildfire: Minister Says 500, Mayor Says 5 Thousand Hectares of Forestland Razed — Bianet English, 23 August 2019
- İzmir'in ilçelerinde yangınlar üçüncü gününde sürüyor, Pakdemirli: Yerleşim yerlerini tehdit etmiyor — Euronews Türkçe, 20 August 2019
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 Aug | 27.8 °C | 25 % | 75 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 19 Aug | 29.1 °C | 22 % | 59 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 20 Aug | 29.7 °C | 28 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 21 Aug after | 30.3 °C | 33 % | 59 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 22 Aug after | 31.5 °C | 33 % | 61 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 23 Aug after | 33.6 °C | 24 % | 65 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 24 Aug after | 35.2 °C | 18 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 25 Aug after | 34.9 °C | 27 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 26 Aug after | 35.2 °C | 24 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 27 Aug after | 32.4 °C | 35 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 28 Aug after | 33.5 °C | 25 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 29 Aug after | 30.7 °C | 35 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 30 Aug after | 31.0 °C | 21 % | 52 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 16 August 2019 the air beside the fire reached 25 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 20: 1.3 times the WHO daily 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)
Detections table · 405Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Karabağlar fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 18 August 2019 and 20 August 2019: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 6,800 hectares (68.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Menderes (5,431 ha, 6.9 %); Seferihisar (1,341 ha, 3.4 %); Karabağlar (48 ha, 0.5 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 7.8 km of Menderes. 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 29.7 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 75 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.
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.