Nusaybin fire, August 2019 Nusaybin, İdil
The fire started on 2 August 2019 in Nusaybin, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 20,637 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the largest fire in Mardin since 2016 (of 131 with a page). The largest in Türkiye in 2019, of 138.
- Burnt area
- 20,637ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 6days
- 2 Aug 2019 – 7 Aug 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 2 Aug
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 271
- in a single hotspot: 121 MW
- Danger at start
- 62
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 2.4GW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
50% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 9,902 ha in 2016, 409 ha in 2017.
- 9,212 ha Nusaybin fire, August 2016 10,890 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 478 ha Nusaybin fire, September 2016 488 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 409 ha Nusaybin fire, July 2017 785 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 175 ha Nusaybin fire, August 2016 488 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 37 ha Nusaybin fire, July 2016 5,310 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
19,687 ha reached on 2 Aug17 %
-
İdil 76,523 inhabitants · 25.5 km from the town989 ha reached on 4 Aug0.9 %
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
- Scrub and transitional woodland56 %
- Other natural land37 %
- Agricultural areas6.0 %
- Broadleaved forest0.9 %
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 | 37.7 °C | 14 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 3 Aug | 37.0 °C | 16 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 4 Aug | 37.4 °C | 13 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 5 Aug | 37.3 °C | 15 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 6 Aug | 36.9 °C | 16 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 7 Aug | 37.3 °C | 10 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 8 Aug after | 37.3 °C | 7 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 9 Aug after | 38.4 °C | 14 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 10 Aug after | 39.1 °C | 15 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 11 Aug after | 40.1 °C | 14 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 12 Aug after | 40.8 °C | 14 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 13 Aug after | 41.7 °C | 11 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 14 Aug after | 40.7 °C | 11 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 69 |
| 15 Aug after | 39.3 °C | 16 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 69 |
| 16 Aug after | 34.3 °C | 18 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 17 Aug after | 32.9 °C | 22 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
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 9 August 2019 the air beside the fire reached 32 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.5 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 · 271Every 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 2 August 2019 and 7 August 2019: 6 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 20,637 hectares (206.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Nusaybin (19,687 ha, 17 %); İdil (989 ha, 0.9 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 21.1 km of Nusaybin. 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 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 66, 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
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.