Lice fire, 28 August 2023 Lice
The fire started on 28 August 2023 in Lice, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 208 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 62th largest in Diyarbakır since 2016 (of 110 with a page). Number 39 in Türkiye in 2023, of 73.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Lice · 2016Silvan · 2016Hazro · 2016Kulp · 2016
We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.
- Burnt area
- 208ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 28 Aug 2023 – 28 Aug 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 28 Aug
- 2023
- Danger at start
- 57
- Extreme · FWI index
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
It had gone 33 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 170 ha in 2016.
What happened to each town
-
208 ha0.2 %
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 land83 %
- Agricultural areas17 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28 Aug | 35.8 °C | 19 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 29 Aug after | 30.7 °C | 29 % | 38 km/h | 0.5 mm | Very high 41 |
| 30 Aug after | 33.7 °C | 26 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 31 Aug after | 36.4 °C | 20 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 1 Sept after | 37.5 °C | 20 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 2 Sept after | 38.6 °C | 16 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 3 Sept after | 36.8 °C | 19 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 4 Sept after | 34.9 °C | 23 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 5 Sept after | 38.2 °C | 13 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 6 Sept after | 38.3 °C | 12 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 7 Sept after | 38.1 °C | 15 % | 34 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 28 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 12 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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)
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Lice fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 28 August 2023 and 28 August 2023: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 208 hectares (2.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Lice (208 ha, 0.2 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 23.4 km of Lice. 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 35.8 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, 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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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.