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Samsat fire, July 2020 Samsat, Kahta

Out · last detection 4 Jul 2020, 23:15 UTC

The fire started on 1 July 2020 in Samsat, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 130 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 31th largest in Adıyaman since 2016 (of 40 with a page). Number 172 in Türkiye in 2020, of 212.

The power measured by the satellite is low (5.0 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: Kahta · 2019Samsat · 2020Adıyaman merkez · 2025Adıyaman merkez · 2026

Burnt area
130ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
1 Jul 2020 – 4 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
1 Jul
2020
Heat detections
7
in a single hotspot: 5 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
9MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Jul4 Jul
4 Jul 2020

How it evolved, day by day

1 Jul 2020 · 1 MW · 1 4 Jul 2020 · 17 MW · 6
1 Jul 4 Jul

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
40km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

69% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 90 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Samsat 7,893 inhabitants · 7.9 km from the centre where it started
    122 ha reached on 1 Jul
    0.4 %
  2. Kahta Kâhta 122,774 inhabitants · 15.2 km from the centre
    8 ha reached on 4 Jul
    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

  • Agricultural areas98 %
  • Other natural land2.4 %

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)
1 Jul 35.1 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
2 Jul 36.1 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Jul 37.2 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
4 Jul 38.9 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
5 Jul after 39.1 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
6 Jul after 39.0 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
7 Jul after 37.6 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
8 Jul after 36.0 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
9 Jul after 37.7 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
10 Jul after 37.8 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
11 Jul after 37.6 °C 19 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Jul after 38.5 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Jun 2020
After · 11 Jul 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 7 July 2020 the air beside the fire reached 22 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak22 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1030 µg/m³
29301234567
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 · 7Every 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 Samsat fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 1 July 2020 to 4 July 2020 (4 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 July 2020 to 2 July 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 130 hectares (1.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Samsat (122 ha, 0.4 %); Kahta (8 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Samsat and came within 7.9 km of its centre. 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 36.1 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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 · 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.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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
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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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 1 July 2020 to 2 July 2020. 7 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.