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Silopi fire, 20 July 2020 Silopi, Uludere

Out · last measured on 23 Jul 2020

The fire started on 20 July 2020 in Silopi, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 325 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 69th largest in Şırnak since 2016 (of 192 with a page). Number 71 in Türkiye in 2020, of 212.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Zakho · 2016Şırnak merkez · 2021Sumail · 2020Al-Amadiya · 2016

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
325ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
20 Jul 2020 – 23 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
20 Jul
2020
Danger at start
53
Extreme · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

40°high
36km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 28 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

14% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 41 ha in 2018, 6 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Silopi 134,754 inhabitants · 24.8 km from the centre where it started
    284 ha
    0.4 %
  2. Uludere 46,040 inhabitants · 16.6 km from the centre
    42 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

  • Scrub and transitional woodland46 %
  • Other natural land36 %
  • Artificial surfaces9.8 %
  • Broadleaved forest7.7 %

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)
20 Jul 39.6 °C 9 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
21 Jul 39.0 °C 11 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
22 Jul 38.7 °C 9 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
23 Jul 38.2 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
24 Jul after 38.4 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
25 Jul after 38.9 °C 16 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
26 Jul after 38.8 °C 12 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
27 Jul after 39.6 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
28 Jul after 40.2 °C 17 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
29 Jul after 38.9 °C 15 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
30 Jul after 38.3 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
31 Jul after 37.5 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
1 Aug after 37.5 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
2 Aug after 36.2 °C 13 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Jul 2020
After · 30 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 25 July 2020 the air beside the fire reached 34 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak34 µg/m³
Days over the guideline7 days
PM1056 µg/m³
181920212223242526
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Türkiye ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Silopi fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 20 July 2020 and 23 July 2020: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 325 hectares (3.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Silopi (284 ha, 0.4 %); Uludere (42 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire came within 16.6 km of the centre of Uludere, 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 39.6 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 36 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 · 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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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.