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Silopi fire, 6 July 2019 Silopi, Cizre

Out · last detection 6 Jul 2019, 23:40 UTC

The fire started on 6 July 2019 in Silopi, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 296 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 79th largest in Şırnak since 2016 (of 192 with a page). Number 40 in Türkiye in 2019, of 138.

The power measured by the satellite is low (7.8 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
296ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
6 Jul 2019 – 6 Jul 2019
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
6 Jul
2019
Heat detections
6
in a single hotspot: 8 MW
Danger at start
54
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
21MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Jul6 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

6

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
26km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 25 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

78% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 230 ha in 2016, 198 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 231 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Silopi 134,754 inhabitants · 15.0 km from the town where it started
    216 ha reached on 6 Jul
    0.3 %
  2. Cizre 143,124 inhabitants · 14.1 km from the town
    81 ha
    0.2 %

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

  • Other natural land98 %
  • Agricultural areas1.7 %

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)
6 Jul 38.8 °C 12 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
7 Jul after 40.6 °C 14 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
8 Jul after 39.4 °C 16 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
9 Jul after 39.9 °C 15 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
10 Jul after 40.1 °C 14 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
11 Jul after 40.8 °C 15 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
12 Jul after 39.2 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
13 Jul after 36.5 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Jul after 37.6 °C 17 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
15 Jul after 37.1 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
16 Jul after 36.6 °C 21 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Jun 2019
After · 13 Jul 2019

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 6 July 2019 the air beside the fire reached 25 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak25 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM1041 µg/m³
456789
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 · 6Every 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 Silopi fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 6 July 2019 and 6 July 2019: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 296 hectares (3.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Silopi (216 ha, 0.3 %); Cizre (81 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 14.1 km of Cizre. 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 38.8 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 26 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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
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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.

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.