Şemdinli fire, October 2017 Şemdinli, Derecik
The fire started on 15 October 2017 in Şemdinli, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 106 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 104th largest in Hakkâri since 2016 (of 111 with a page). Number 93 in Türkiye in 2017, of 98.
The power measured by the satellite is low (15.8 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
- 106ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 15 Oct 2017 – 15 Oct 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 15 Oct
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 5
- in a single hotspot: 16 MW
- Danger at start
- 25
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 49MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
15 Oct 2017 · 49 MW · 5
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 10 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
-
106 ha reached on 15 Oct0.1 %
-
Derecik 25,907 inhabitants · 16.1 km from the centre0 ha0.0 %
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
- Other natural land57 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland43 %
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 Oct | 21.7 °C | 26 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 16 Oct after | 20.2 °C | 26 % | 71 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 17 Oct after | 21.0 °C | 23 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 18 Oct after | 21.5 °C | 27 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 19 Oct after | 21.6 °C | 20 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 20 Oct after | 21.6 °C | 25 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 21 Oct after | 21.3 °C | 20 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 22 Oct after | 20.0 °C | 25 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 23 Oct after | 21.6 °C | 23 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 24 Oct after | 20.5 °C | 32 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 25 Oct after | 23.9 °C | 26 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
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 15 October 2017 the air beside the fire reached 12 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 5Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,649 haŞemdinliMay 2021 · 8 days · 3 km away
- 1,324 haAl-ZibarJune 2017 · 1 day · 28 km away
- 1,492 haYüksekova7 November 2021 · 7 days · 29 km away
- 1,310 haAl-Amadiya30 July 2020 · 3 days · 35 km away
- 1,725 haAl-AmadiyaSeptember 2020 · 5 days · 36 km away
- 1,500 haAl-Amadiya1 August 2019 · 5 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Şemdinli fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 15 October 2017 and 15 October 2017: 1 day 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: Şemdinli (106 ha, 0.1 %); Derecik (0 ha, 0.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 16.1 km of the centre of Derecik, 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 21.7 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, class 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.
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. 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.
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.