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TR · Türkiye · –

Sultandağı fire, November 2021 Sultandağı

Out · last detection 17 Nov 2021, 11:03 UTC

The fire started on 10 November 2021 in Sultandağı, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 132 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 33th largest in Afyonkarahisar since 2016 (of 41 with a page). Number 118 in Türkiye in 2021, of 138.

Burnt area
132ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
8days
10 Nov 2021 – 17 Nov 2021
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
10 Nov
2021
Heat detections
13
in a single hotspot: 342 MW
Danger at start
18
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
166MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Nov17 Nov
17 Nov 2021

How it evolved, day by day

14 Nov 2021 · 92 MW · 7 16 Nov 2021 · 398 MW · 4 17 Nov 2021 · 9 MW · 2
14 Nov 16 Nov 17 Nov

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

The weather it burned in

18°high
44km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 14.9 mm on 24 Nov.

This area had burned before

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Sultandağı 15,076 inhabitants · 9.2 km from the centre where it started
    133 ha reached on 14 Nov
    0.1 %

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

  • Other land cover100 %

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)
10 Nov 11.5 °C 45 % 44 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 18
11 Nov 10.2 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
12 Nov 11.3 °C 30 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
13 Nov 13.8 °C 30 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
14 Nov 15.7 °C 30 % 14 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
15 Nov 18.1 °C 27 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
16 Nov 13.9 °C 36 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
17 Nov 16.2 °C 36 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
18 Nov after 17.1 °C 40 % 14 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
19 Nov after 8.6 °C 68 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
20 Nov after 9.4 °C 54 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
21 Nov after 12.2 °C 43 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
22 Nov after 16.4 °C 41 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
23 Nov after 14.7 °C 60 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
24 Nov after 10.8 °C 87 % 19 km/h 14.9 mm Very low 0

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 17.5, a minimum humidity of 45% and 6 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 19.

FWI at the start 17.5
Minimum humidity 45 %
Days without rain 6
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Çivril fire, November 2025
128 ha 1 day FWI 16.2 Min. humidity 43 % 114 km away, in 2025

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
219 ha
median area
0 %
went past 1,000 ha
3.6 mm
rain at the end (median; 14 of 19 had it)

It stayed below its twins: 132 ha against a median of 219 ha. It lasted 8 days, against 2 days.

In 5 of 19, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.6 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

14.9 mmfirst rain
24 Nov7 days after it ended
44km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 17 Nov, and on 24 Nov 14.9 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 14 of 19, with a median of 3.6 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Nov 2021
After · 24 Nov 2021

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 14 November 2021 the air beside the fire reached 59 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 38: 2.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak59 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM1084 µg/m³
12 Nov14 Nov16 Nov18 Nov20 Nov
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 · 13Every 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 Sultandağı fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 10 November 2021 to 17 November 2021 (8 days). The perimeter dates it from 14 November 2021 to 15 November 2021.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 132 hectares (1.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sultandağı (133 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Sultandağı and came within 9.2 km of its centre. 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 18.1 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 18, class Moderate.
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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 19. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 219 ha; 0 % went past 1,000 ha. In 5 of 19, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.6 mm.

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.

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 14 November 2021 to 15 November 2021. 13 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.