Silvan fire, August 2026 Silvan
The fire started on 29 August 2026 in Silvan, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 44 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 114 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 100th largest in Diyarbakır since 2016 (of 110 with a page). Number 96 in Türkiye in 2026, of 106.
We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but not yet its hotspots: NASA publishes the yearly hotspot archive only once the year closes. The page picks it up automatically when it is available.
- Burnt area
- 114ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 44days
- 29 Aug 2026 – 11 Oct 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 29 Aug
- 2026
- Danger at start
- 56
- Extreme · FWI index
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
It had gone 51 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
-
115 ha0.1 %
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 land100 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 Aug | 36.4 °C | 14 % | 41 km/h | 0.8 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 30 Aug | 33.5 °C | 18 % | 55 km/h | 0.1 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 31 Aug | 32.5 °C | 19 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 1 Sept | 34.0 °C | 18 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 2 Sept | 35.1 °C | 15 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 3 Sept | 36.3 °C | 13 % | 15 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 4 Sept | 36.6 °C | 11 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 5 Sept | 35.8 °C | 15 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 6 Sept | 34.6 °C | 18 % | 33 km/h | 0.8 mm | Very high 43 |
| 7 Sept | 34.5 °C | 11 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 8 Sept | 31.5 °C | 10 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
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 31 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 13 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)
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Silvan fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 August 2026 to 11 October 2026 (44 days). The perimeter dates it from 29 August 2026 to 29 August 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 114 hectares (1.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Silvan (115 ha, 0.1 %).
- Is the Silvan fire still active?
- No fire detections since 11 October 2026. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 3.7 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 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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
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.