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Marivan fire, August 2025 Marivan

Out · last detection 23 Aug 2025, 09:41 UTC

The fire started on 20 August 2025 in Marivan, Iran, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,005 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 13th largest in Kurdistan since 2016 (of 13 with a page). Number 32 in Iran in 2025, of 32.

Burnt area
1,005ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
20 Aug 2025 – 23 Aug 2025
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
20 Aug
2025
Heat detections
56
in a single hotspot: 49 MW
Danger at start
65
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
692MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Aug 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Aug23 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

20212223

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
51km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

52% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 300 ha in 2018, 365 ha in 2021, 179 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 519 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Marivan where it started
    1,008 ha
    0.4 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS 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.

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)
20 Aug 38.8 °C 12 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
21 Aug 36.0 °C 10 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
22 Aug 36.8 °C 10 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
23 Aug 36.8 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
24 Aug after 38.6 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
25 Aug after 39.0 °C 9 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
26 Aug after 39.2 °C 9 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
27 Aug after 39.8 °C 7 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
28 Aug after 38.6 °C 10 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
29 Aug after 37.4 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
30 Aug after 37.3 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
31 Aug after 37.9 °C 9 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
1 Sept after 37.1 °C 10 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
2 Sept after 35.5 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Aug 2025
After · 30 Aug 2025

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 21 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 65 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 44: 2.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak65 µg/m³
Days over the guideline7 days
PM10294 µg/m³
Optical depth0.38
181920212223242526
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 · 56Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Iran ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Marivan fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 August 2025 and 23 August 2025: 4 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,005 hectares (10.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Marivan (1,008 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.8 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 65, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Iran (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: 125

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
What do you think is wrong?

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 125.

Where this data comes from

The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. 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 from each country’s official figure.