Uludere fire, July 2020 Uludere
The fire started on 15 July 2020 in Uludere, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 487 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 40th largest in Şırnak since 2016 (of 192 with a page). Number 36 in Türkiye in 2020, of 212.
The power measured by the satellite is low (12.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 487ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 15 Jul 2020 – 18 Jul 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 15 Jul
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 13
- in a single hotspot: 12 MW
- Danger at start
- 48
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 15MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 23 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
23% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 34 ha in 2016, 68 ha in 2017, 10 ha in 2018.
- 29 ha Uludere fire, September 2016 416 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 10 ha Uludere fire, August 2018 109 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5 ha Uludere fire, August 2016 573 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
487 ha reached on 15 Jul0.5 %
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
- Scrub and transitional woodland45 %
- Other natural land37 %
- Broadleaved forest18 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Jul | 38.6 °C | 14 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 16 Jul | 39.1 °C | 17 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 17 Jul | 39.7 °C | 16 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 18 Jul | 39.9 °C | 17 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 19 Jul after | 40.0 °C | 9 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 20 Jul after | 41.6 °C | 9 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 21 Jul after | 40.9 °C | 11 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 22 Jul after | 40.7 °C | 9 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 23 Jul after | 40.2 °C | 16 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 24 Jul after | 40.4 °C | 16 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 25 Jul after | 40.9 °C | 17 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 26 Jul after | 40.7 °C | 13 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 27 Jul after | 41.5 °C | 15 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 28 Jul after | 42.1 °C | 18 % | 62 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
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 23 July 2020 the air beside the fire reached 30 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily 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)
Detections table · 13Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 2,891 haZakhoAugust 2016 · 19 days · 24 km away
- 1,457 haŞırnak merkez Şırnak26 June 2021 · 5 days · 27 km away
- 1,258 haŞırnak merkez ŞırnakJuly 2021 · 6 days · 32 km away
- 1,250 haZakhoJune 2021 · 4 days · 33 km away
- 1,346 haCizre30 July 2016 · 2 days · 35 km away
- 1,555 haAl-AmadiyaSeptember 2016 · 2 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Uludere fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 15 July 2020 and 18 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 487 hectares (4.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Uludere (487 ha, 0.5 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 12.0 km of Uludere. 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 39.9 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.