Nusaybin fire, 17 July 2016 Midyat, Nusaybin
The fire started on 17 July 2016 in Nusaybin, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,189 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 22th largest in Mardin since 2016 (of 131 with a page). Number 20 in Türkiye in 2016, of 223.
The power measured by the satellite is low (21.3 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
- 1,189ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 17 Jul 2016 – 20 Jul 2016
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 17 Jul
- 2016
- Heat detections
- 23
- in a single hotspot: 21 MW
- Danger at start
- 56
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 58MW
- 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 25 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
-
Midyat 118,625 inhabitants · 15.3 km from the town685 ha reached on 18 Jul0.6 %
-
506 ha reached on 17 Jul0.4 %
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
- Agricultural areas67 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland33 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 Jul | 40.3 °C | 9 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 18 Jul | 39.0 °C | 12 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 19 Jul | 37.8 °C | 13 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 20 Jul | 39.8 °C | 13 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 21 Jul after | 37.4 °C | 13 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 22 Jul after | 36.0 °C | 15 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 23 Jul after | 38.2 °C | 11 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 24 Jul after | 38.6 °C | 14 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 25 Jul after | 38.4 °C | 13 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 26 Jul after | 36.6 °C | 10 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 27 Jul after | 36.0 °C | 12 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 28 Jul after | 36.8 °C | 14 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 29 Jul after | 37.3 °C | 9 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 30 Jul after | 35.4 °C | 10 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
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.
Detections table · 23Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Nusaybin fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 17 July 2016 and 20 July 2016: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,189 hectares (11.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Midyat (685 ha, 0.6 %); Nusaybin (506 ha, 0.4 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 15.3 km of Midyat. 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 40.3 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 68, 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. 23 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.