How long did the Köyceğiz fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 29 July 2021 and 12 August 2021: 15 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 10,366 hectares (103.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Köyceğiz (10,386 ha, 7.4 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire started in Köyceğiz and came within 3.0 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 33.9 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 79 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, 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.

TR · Türkiye · 2021-07-29 → 2021-08-12

Köyceğiz fire, July 2021 Köyceğiz

Out · last detection 12 Aug 2021, 00:00 UTC

The fire started on 29 July 2021 in Köyceğiz, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 10,366 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 4th largest in Muğla since 2016 (of 43 with a page). Number 6 in Türkiye in 2021, of 138.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Köyceğiz · 2025 Dalaman · 2021 Dalaman · 2024 Fethiye · 2019

Burnt area: 10,366ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 15days; 29 Jul 2021 – 12 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 29 Jul; 2021
Heat detections: 650; in a single hotspot: 176 MW
Danger at start: 47; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 607MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Jul12 Aug

Play back 12 Aug 2021

How it evolved, day by day

29 Jul 1 Aug 3 Aug 4 Aug 7 Aug 10 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

34°high

79km/h · peak gust

11%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 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.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 6.5% of the area of London (104 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Köyceğiz 38,425 inhabitants · 3.0 km from the centre where it started

10,386 ha reached on 29 Jul

7.4 %

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 forest70 %
Scrub and transitional woodland22 %
Other natural land4.5 %
Mixed forest1.9 %
Sclerophyllous scrub1.2 %
Agricultural areas0.5 %

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

Checked against the press

Checked on 29 September 2026

We checked this page against 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:

Also known as: Köyceğiz yangını · Muğla Köyceğiz yangını · Köyceğiz wildfire; Declared under control (not yet extinguished): 12 August 2021

Sources

Charred landscape of southern provinces coming back to life — Hurriyet Daily News, 5 February 2024
Study: 83,000 hectares of forests burned in Turkey's south and southwest in two weeks — Bianet, 12 August 2021
Orman yanginlarinda son durum! Köyceğiz yangini kontrol altinda; Bucak'ta 7 mahalle tahliye edildi, 6 kisi gozaltinda — Hurriyet, 12 August 2021
Buyuk orman yanginlarinin tamami sonduruldu — TRT Haber, 12 August 2021

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 Jul	31.0 °C	15 %	71 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
30 Jul	31.5 °C	15 %	61 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
31 Jul	31.2 °C	18 %	61 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
1 Aug	31.7 °C	15 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
2 Aug	31.9 °C	15 %	61 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
3 Aug	33.9 °C	11 %	71 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
4 Aug	33.8 °C	14 %	63 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
5 Aug	32.8 °C	15 %	60 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
6 Aug	32.8 °C	13 %	67 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
7 Aug	27.2 °C	25 %	74 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 48
8 Aug	28.4 °C	25 %	73 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
9 Aug	30.3 °C	13 %	61 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
10 Aug	29.4 °C	16 %	76 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
11 Aug	28.3 °C	19 %	79 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 63
12 Aug	27.9 °C	18 %	66 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
13 Aug after	28.7 °C	23 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
14 Aug after	28.3 °C	20 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
15 Aug after	28.5 °C	16 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
16 Aug after	28.8 °C	17 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
17 Aug after	28.0 °C	21 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
18 Aug after	28.4 °C	22 %	50 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 43
19 Aug after	29.7 °C	23 %	49 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 42
20 Aug after	29.3 °C	22 %	60 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
21 Aug after	28.9 °C	23 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
22 Aug after	28.5 °C	24 %	46 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 45

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 22 Jul 2021

After · 19 Aug 2021

Before After

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 6 August 2021 the air beside the fire reached 49 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 31: 2.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak49 µg/m³

Days over the guideline5 days

PM1087 µg/m³

WHO 15

2728293031123456789101112131415

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 · 650Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Türkiye ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Köyceğiz fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 29 July 2021 and 12 August 2021: 15 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 10,366 hectares (103.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Köyceğiz (10,386 ha, 7.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire started in Köyceğiz and came within 3.0 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 33.9 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 79 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

OGM · Orman Genel Müdürlüğü ↗
AFAD ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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. 650 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Checked against news and agencies: 4 confirmed sources.
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.

Where it burned