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Silvan fire, 28 July 2016 Silvan

Out · last measured on 28 Jul 2016

The fire started on 28 July 2016 in Silvan, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 296 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 45th largest in Diyarbakır since 2016 (of 110 with a page). Number 109 in Türkiye in 2016, of 223.

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
296ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
28 Jul 2016 – 28 Jul 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
28 Jul
2016
Danger at start
51
Extreme · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

38°high
29km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 39 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

  1. Silvan 86,672 inhabitants · 1.0 km from the town where it started
    297 ha reached on 21 Jul
    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

  • Agricultural areas100 %

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)
28 Jul 38.3 °C 11 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
29 Jul after 37.6 °C 13 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
30 Jul after 37.9 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
31 Jul after 38.2 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
1 Aug after 37.9 °C 11 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
2 Aug after 38.3 °C 12 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
3 Aug after 39.6 °C 11 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
4 Aug after 40.7 °C 10 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
5 Aug after 40.3 °C 13 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
6 Aug after 39.7 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
7 Aug after 37.6 °C 17 % 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 · 21 Jul 2016
After · 4 Aug 2016

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 31 July 2016 the air beside the fire reached 15 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak15 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1019 µg/m³
262728293031
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 Silvan fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 28 July 2016 and 28 July 2016: 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 only entered Silvan (297 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.0 km of Silvan. 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 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 29 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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
What do you think is wrong?

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.