Skip to content
worldfires
TR · Türkiye · →

Siverek fire, July 2023 Siverek

Out · last measured on 23 Jul 2023

The fire started on 23 July 2023 in Siverek, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 523 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 5th largest in Şanlıurfa since 2016 (of 44 with a page). Number 13 in Türkiye in 2023, of 73.

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
523ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
23 Jul 2023 – 23 Jul 2023
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
23 Jul
2023
Danger at start
54
Extreme · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

39°high
36km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 43 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. Siverek 258,265 inhabitants · 23.1 km from the town where it started
    527 ha
    0.1 %

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)
23 Jul 39.3 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
24 Jul after 37.7 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
25 Jul after 37.0 °C 19 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
26 Jul after 38.6 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
27 Jul after 40.0 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
28 Jul after 39.9 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
29 Jul after 37.5 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
30 Jul after 38.7 °C 9 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
31 Jul after 36.9 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
1 Aug after 37.6 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
2 Aug after 37.0 °C 16 % 29 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 · 16 Jul 2023
After · 30 Jul 2023

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 26 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 6 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak6 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1011 µg/m³
Optical depth0.21
212223242526
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 Siverek fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 23 July 2023 and 23 July 2023: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 523 hectares (5.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Siverek (527 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 23.1 km of Siverek. 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 39.3 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % 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

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.