Karakoçan fire, 1 September 2016 Karakoçan
The fire started on 1 September 2016 in Karakoçan, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 477 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 6th largest in Elazığ since 2016 (of 33 with a page). Number 69 in Türkiye in 2016, of 223.
The power measured by the satellite is low (14.0 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
- 477ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 1 Sept 2016 – 1 Sept 2016
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 1 Sept
- 2016
- Heat detections
- 6
- in a single hotspot: 14 MW
- Danger at start
- 53
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 42MW
- 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 54 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
-
477 ha reached on 31 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
- Other natural land56 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland44 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Sept | 29.3 °C | 20 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 2 Sept after | 29.6 °C | 16 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 3 Sept after | 30.2 °C | 16 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 4 Sept after | 27.6 °C | 24 % | 36 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very high 42 |
| 5 Sept after | 27.2 °C | 26 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 6 Sept after | 27.7 °C | 16 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 7 Sept after | 27.9 °C | 15 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 8 Sept after | 29.7 °C | 14 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 9 Sept after | 30.3 °C | 9 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 10 Sept after | 30.3 °C | 11 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 11 Sept after | 30.6 °C | 9 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
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 30 August 2016 the air beside the fire reached 39 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 31: 2.1 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 · 6Every 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 Karakoçan fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 1 September 2016 and 1 September 2016: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 477 hectares (4.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Karakoçan (477 ha, 0.5 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 5.3 km of Karakoçan. 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 29.3 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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.