Menderes fire, August 2020 Menderes
The fire started on 2 August 2020 in Menderes, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 368 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 23th largest in İzmir since 2016 (of 68 with a page). Number 62 in Türkiye in 2020, of 212.
- Burnt area
- 368ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 2 Aug 2020 – 3 Aug 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 2 Aug
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 18
- in a single hotspot: 39 MW
- Danger at start
- 47
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 152MW
- 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 39 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
-
368 ha reached on 2 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
- Coniferous forest87 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub8.1 %
- Agricultural areas4.3 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland1.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Aug | 37.3 °C | 25 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 3 Aug | 35.1 °C | 26 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 4 Aug after | 32.3 °C | 38 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 5 Aug after | 32.1 °C | 42 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 6 Aug after | 34.0 °C | 35 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 7 Aug after | 30.3 °C | 49 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 8 Aug after | 29.0 °C | 60 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 9 Aug after | 31.4 °C | 49 % | 33 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 23 |
| 10 Aug after | 34.5 °C | 30 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 11 Aug after | 34.7 °C | 29 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 12 Aug after | 35.5 °C | 26 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 13 Aug after | 35.4 °C | 24 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
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 6 August 2020 the air beside the fire reached 23 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.0 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 · 18Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,759 haMenderesJuly 2017 · 3 days · 15 km away
- 611 haSelçukJune 2024 · 1 day · 16 km away
- 4,867 haSeferihisar29 June 2025 · 3 days · 22 km away
- 5,112 haSeferihisar29 June 2025 · 4 days · 28 km away
- 6,800 haKarabağlar MenderesAugust 2019 · 3 days · 29 km away
- 1,014 haSeferihisarJuly 2020 · 1 day · 30 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Menderes fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 2 August 2020 and 3 August 2020: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 368 hectares (3.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Menderes (368 ha, 0.5 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 21.0 km of Menderes. 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 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, class Very high.
- 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.