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Milas fire, July 2021 Milas, Bodrum

Out · last detection 7 Aug 2021, 23:35 UTC

The fire started on 31 July 2021 in Milas, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 16,157 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the largest fire in Muğla since 2016 (of 43 with a page). Number 2 in Türkiye in 2021, of 138.

Burnt area
16,157ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
9days
31 Jul 2021 – 8 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
31 Jul
2021
Heat detections
784
in a single hotspot: 521 MW
Danger at start
59
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
20.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Aug 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Jul8 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1234567

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
80km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone 48 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 36 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Milas 139,446 inhabitants · 20.8 km from the town where it started
    10,002 ha reached on 1 Aug
    4.8 %
  2. Bodrum Karaada 187,284 inhabitants · 19.9 km from the town
    6,153 ha reached on 1 Aug
    9.1 %

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 forest37 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland28 %
  • Agricultural areas20 %
  • Broadleaved forest7.4 %
  • Other natural land4.1 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub2.2 %
  • Mixed forest1.1 %

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
Milas yangini · Milas Beyciler yangini · Bodrum Mazi yangini
Official area reported: 13,464 ha (the satellite measured 16,157 ha)
Declared under control (not yet extinguished): 10 August 2021

Sources

Official figures are measured differently from satellite ones and sometimes cover only part of the fire.

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)
31 Jul 39.0 °C 10 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
1 Aug 39.0 °C 10 % 74 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
2 Aug 39.8 °C 7 % 67 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
3 Aug 41.1 °C 7 % 79 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
4 Aug 40.6 °C 9 % 78 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
5 Aug 38.7 °C 14 % 67 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
6 Aug 38.7 °C 9 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
7 Aug 33.2 °C 18 % 80 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
8 Aug 34.9 °C 17 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
9 Aug after 36.5 °C 10 % 68 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
10 Aug after 36.7 °C 10 % 71 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
11 Aug after 35.9 °C 13 % 70 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
12 Aug after 34.6 °C 11 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
13 Aug after 35.1 °C 15 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
14 Aug after 33.3 °C 17 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
15 Aug after 33.8 °C 15 % 63 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
16 Aug after 33.5 °C 15 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
17 Aug after 33.2 °C 18 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
18 Aug after 33.3 °C 22 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Jul 2021
After · 15 Aug 2021

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 1 August 2021 the air beside the fire reached 64 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 33: 2.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak64 µg/m³
Days over the guideline9 days
PM10120 µg/m³
2930311234567891011
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 · 784Every 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 Türkiye ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Milas fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 31 July 2021 and 8 August 2021: 9 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 16,157 hectares (161.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Milas (10,002 ha, 4.8 %); Bodrum (6,153 ha, 9.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 19.9 km of Bodrum. 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 41.1 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 80 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 75, class Very 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
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 112.

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.