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Uludere fire, July 2024 Uludere, Silopi

Out · last measured on 25 Jul 2024

The fire started on 24 July 2024 in Uludere, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 109 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 180th largest in Şırnak since 2016 (of 192 with a page). Number 252 in Türkiye in 2024, of 271.

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
109ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
24 Jul 2024 – 25 Jul 2024
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
24 Jul
2024
Danger at start
52
Extreme · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

40°high
34km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 43 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

83% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 88 ha in 2019, 6 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Uludere 46,040 inhabitants · 16.6 km from the town where it started
    58 ha
    0.1 %
  2. Silopi 134,754 inhabitants · 25.8 km from the town
    51 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

  • Scrub and transitional woodland65 %
  • Broadleaved forest33 %
  • Artificial surfaces1.8 %

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)
24 Jul 39.9 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
25 Jul 38.0 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
26 Jul after 36.9 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Jul after 36.1 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Jul after 36.9 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Jul after 38.5 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
30 Jul after 37.7 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
31 Jul after 37.3 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
1 Aug after 38.0 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
2 Aug after 38.0 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
3 Aug after 38.3 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
4 Aug after 38.6 °C 14 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Jul 2024
After · 1 Aug 2024

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 27 July 2024 the air beside the fire reached 11 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak11 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1022 µg/m³
Optical depth0.47
22232425262728
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 Uludere fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 24 July 2024 and 25 July 2024: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 109 hectares (1.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Uludere (58 ha, 0.1 %); Silopi (51 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 16.6 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 11 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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.