Palu fire, September 2020 Palu
The fire started on 15 September 2020 in Palu, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 120 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 24th largest in Elazığ since 2016 (of 33 with a page). Number 178 in Türkiye in 2020, of 212.
The power measured by the satellite is low (12.7 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…
Suggestions: Karakoçan · 2024Genç · 2016Genç · 2018Genç · 2021
- Burnt area
- 120ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 15 Sept 2020 – 15 Sept 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 15 Sept
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 9
- in a single hotspot: 13 MW
- Danger at start
- 46
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 42MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
15 Sept 2020 · 42 MW · 9
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
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
120 ha reached on 15 Sept0.2 %
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 woodland100 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Sept | 33.8 °C | 8 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 16 Sept after | 33.5 °C | 12 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 17 Sept after | 33.7 °C | 8 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 18 Sept after | 32.2 °C | 11 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 19 Sept after | 30.8 °C | 15 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 20 Sept after | 30.8 °C | 15 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 21 Sept after | 29.9 °C | 17 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 22 Sept after | 29.5 °C | 17 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 23 Sept after | 30.1 °C | 18 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 24 Sept after | 30.0 °C | 18 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 25 Sept after | 28.4 °C | 25 % | 35 km/h | 0.5 mm | Very high 41 |
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 14 September 2020 the air beside the fire reached 26 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 20: 1.3 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 · 9Every 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 Palu fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 15 September 2020 and 15 September 2020: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 120 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Palu (120 ha, 0.2 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 12.8 km of Palu. 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 33.8 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 22 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 9 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.