Kurtalan fire, August 2016 Beşiri · Kurtalan
The fire started on 13 August 2016 in Kurtalan, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 777 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 4th largest in Siirt since 2016 (of 43 with a page). Number 44 in Türkiye in 2016, of 223.
The power measured by the satellite is low (19.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 777ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 13 Aug 2016 – 16 Aug 2016
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 13 Aug
- 2016
- Heat detections
- 9
- in a single hotspot: 20 MW
- Danger at start
- 46
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 42MW
- detected power per day, on average
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.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
780 ha reached on 13 Aug1.0 %
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
- Agricultural areas62 %
- Other natural land27 %
- Artificial surfaces11 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 Aug | 36.1 °C | 17 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 14 Aug | 35.2 °C | 14 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 15 Aug | 36.3 °C | 16 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 16 Aug | 37.1 °C | 15 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 17 Aug after | 34.5 °C | 15 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 18 Aug after | 34.5 °C | 14 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 19 Aug after | 37.4 °C | 14 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 20 Aug after | 37.8 °C | 15 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 21 Aug after | 37.3 °C | 14 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 22 Aug after | 37.4 °C | 12 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 23 Aug after | 36.8 °C | 9 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 24 Aug after | 37.0 °C | 10 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 25 Aug after | 37.1 °C | 12 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 26 Aug after | 36.4 °C | 15 % | 32 km/h | 0.1 mm | Extreme 52 |
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 19 August 2016 the air beside the fire reached 38 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 27: 1.8 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 · 9Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 664 haKurtalan BeşiriJuly 2016 · 1 day · 2 km away
- 689 haBeşiri BatmanJuly 2020 · 1 day · 27 km away
- 1,003 haBitlis merkez Bitlis29 August 2020 · 4 days · 35 km away
- 614 haKozluk11 October 2020 · 4 days · 36 km away
- 495 haHasankeyfJune 2024 · 3 days · 38 km away
- 1,048 haBatman MerkezJuly 2016 · 1 day · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kurtalan fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 13 August 2016 to 16 August 2016 (4 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 August 2016 to 16 August 2016.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 777 hectares (7.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Kurtalan (780 ha, 1.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Kurtalan and came within 38.6 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 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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 ›
Satellite cross-check
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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 16 August 2016 to 16 August 2016. 9 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.
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.