Skip to content
worldfires
TR · Türkiye · –

Onikişubat fire, September 2020 Onikişubat, Düziçi

Out · last detection 12 Sept 2020, 10:42 UTC

The fire started on 11 September 2020 in Onikişubat, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 106 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 27th largest in Kahramanmaraş since 2016 (of 28 with a page). Number 194 in Türkiye in 2020, of 212.

The power measured by the satellite is low (9.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
106ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
11 Sept 2020 – 12 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
11 Sept
2020
Heat detections
5
in a single hotspot: 9 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
14MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Sept12 Sept
12 Sept 2020

How it evolved, day by day

11 Sept 2020 · 4 MW · 2 12 Sept 2020 · 24 MW · 3
11 Sept 12 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
38km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 32 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

  1. Onikişubat 418,379 inhabitants · 39.2 km from the centre where it started
    103 ha reached on 11 Sept
    0.0 %
  2. Düziçi 83,971 inhabitants · 17.1 km from the centre
    3 ha
    0.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

  • Mixed forest58 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland33 %
  • Broadleaved forest7.6 %
  • Coniferous forest1.9 %

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)
11 Sept 30.6 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.7 mm Very high 48
12 Sept 28.2 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
13 Sept after 25.3 °C 46 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
14 Sept after 24.5 °C 42 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
15 Sept after 27.3 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
16 Sept after 27.7 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
17 Sept after 25.2 °C 44 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
18 Sept after 26.1 °C 37 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
19 Sept after 25.1 °C 46 % 37 km/h 0.9 mm High 29
20 Sept after 23.7 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
21 Sept after 23.5 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
22 Sept after 23.8 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 48.1, a minimum humidity of 17% and 32 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 56.

FWI at the start 48.1
Minimum humidity 17 %
Days without rain 32
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Kafr Nobol fire, May 2021
431 ha 1 day FWI 48.6 Min. humidity 17 % 200 km away, in 2021

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

1 day
median duration
214 ha
median area
11 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.2 mm
rain at the end (median; 19 of 56 had it)

It stayed below its twins: 106 ha against a median of 214 ha. It lasted 2 days, against 1 day.

In 37 of 56, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.2 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
38km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 12 Sept, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 19 of 56, with a median of 2.2 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Sept 2020
After · 19 Sept 2020

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 15 September 2020 the air beside the fire reached 44 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 29: 2.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak44 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM1062 µg/m³
9 Sept11 Sept13 Sept15 Sept
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 · 5Every 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 Onikişubat fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 11 September 2020 and 12 September 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 106 hectares (1.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Onikişubat (103 ha, 0.0 %); Düziçi (3 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire came within 17.1 km of the centre of Düziçi, the closest of the areas it touched. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.6 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 56. Their median duration was 1 day and their median area 214 ha; 11 % went past 1,000 ha. In 37 of 56, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.2 mm.

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 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 5 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.