Uludere fire, 3 August 2020 Şırnak merkez, Uludere, Beytüşşebap
The fire started on 3 August 2020 in Uludere, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 480 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 41th largest in Şırnak since 2016 (of 192 with a page). Number 38 in Türkiye in 2020, of 212.
The power measured by the satellite is low (14.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
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- Burnt area
- 480ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 3 Aug 2020 – 6 Aug 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- districts
- Started on
- 3 Aug
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 21
- in a single hotspot: 14 MW
- Danger at start
- 47
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 42MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 32 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
35% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 50 ha in 2016, 140 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 170 ha that had burned before.
- 119 ha Uludere fire, August 2018 619 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 50 ha Şırnak merkez fire, July 2016 270 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 22 ha Şırnak merkez fire, September 2018 455 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
285 ha reached on 4 Aug0.2 %
-
136 ha reached on 4 Aug0.2 %
-
Beytüşşebap 16,317 inhabitants · 51.7 km from the centre60 ha0.0 %
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 natural land71 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland29 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2020Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Aug | 35.0 °C | 19 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 4 Aug | 35.5 °C | 18 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 5 Aug | 34.7 °C | 25 % | 28 km/h | 0.6 mm | High 34 |
| 6 Aug | 36.2 °C | 17 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 7 Aug after | 36.2 °C | 16 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 8 Aug after | 35.4 °C | 17 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 9 Aug after | 35.1 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 10 Aug after | 33.7 °C | 25 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 11 Aug after | 32.9 °C | 25 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 12 Aug after | 34.5 °C | 24 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 13 Aug after | 34.6 °C | 23 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 14 Aug after | 34.2 °C | 20 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 15 Aug after | 34.3 °C | 25 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 16 Aug after | 34.3 °C | 23 % | 45 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 45 |
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.
Detections table · 21Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,457 haŞırnak merkez Şırnak26 June 2021 · 5 days · 10 km away
- 1,258 haŞırnak merkez ŞırnakJuly 2021 · 8 days · 17 km away
- 1,346 haCizre29 July 2016 · 8 days · 32 km away
- 1,682 haEruhAugust 2017 · 4 days · 37 km away
- 1,368 haŞırnak merkez Şırnak14 September 2020 · 7 days · 38 km away
- 2,891 haZakhoAugust 2016 · 19 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Uludere fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 3 August 2020 and 6 August 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 480 hectares (4.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Şırnak merkez (285 ha, 0.2 %); Uludere (136 ha, 0.2 %); Beytüşşebap (60 ha, 0.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 15.7 km of the centre of Şırnak merkez, the closest of the areas it touched. 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 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, class Very high.
- 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 · 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.
No changes 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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 21 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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.