Skip to content
worldfires
en
TR · Türkiye · →

Viranşehir fire, 19 June 2017 Ceylanpınar, Viranşehir

Out · last detection 25 Jun 2017, 23:34 UTC

The fire started on 19 June 2017 in Viranşehir, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,279 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 2th largest in Şanlıurfa since 2016 (of 45 with a page). Number 9 in Türkiye in 2017, of 98.

The power measured by the satellite is low (13.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ras Al Ain · 2019Ras Al Ain · 2019Haliliye · 2024Ras Al Ain · 2019

Burnt area
1,279ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
7days
19 Jun 2017 – 25 Jun 2017
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
19 Jun
2017
Heat detections
11
in a single hotspot: 13 MW
Danger at start
66
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
14MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Jun25 Jun
25 Jun 2017

How it evolved, day by day

19 Jun 2017 · 4 MW · 1 20 Jun 2017 · 44 MW · 8 21 Jun 2017 · 3 MW · 1 25 Jun 2017 · 3 MW · 1
19 Jun 20 Jun 21 Jun 25 Jun

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
53km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone 26 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.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.8% of the area of London (13 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Ceylanpınar 87,684 inhabitants · 44.2 km from the centre
    774 ha reached on 20 Jun
    0.4 %
  2. Viranşehir 195,910 inhabitants · 30.2 km from the centre where it started
    506 ha reached on 19 Jun
    0.2 %

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

  • Agricultural areas68 %
  • Other natural land26 %
  • Other land cover4.8 %
  • Artificial surfaces0.9 %

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)
19 Jun 34.1 °C 18 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
20 Jun 31.9 °C 17 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
21 Jun 32.1 °C 16 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
22 Jun 33.0 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.4 mm Extreme 59
23 Jun 34.9 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
24 Jun 37.4 °C 9 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
25 Jun 39.3 °C 7 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
26 Jun after 40.3 °C 8 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
27 Jun after 41.0 °C 6 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
28 Jun after 40.5 °C 8 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 85
29 Jun after 42.0 °C 9 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 80
30 Jun after 42.0 °C 7 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 91
1 Jul after 41.2 °C 10 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 84
2 Jul after 41.8 °C 9 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 70
3 Jul after 43.0 °C 7 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
4 Jul after 43.2 °C 6 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 84
5 Jul after 43.0 °C 9 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Jun 2017
After · 2 Jul 2017

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 28 June 2017 the air beside the fire reached 27 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak27 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1029 µg/m³
171819202122232425262728
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 · 11Every 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 Viranşehir fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 19 June 2017 to 25 June 2017 (7 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 June 2017 to 24 June 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,279 hectares (12.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ceylanpınar (774 ha, 0.4 %); Viranşehir (506 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Viranşehir and came within 30.2 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 39.3 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 74, class Very 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 · 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.

RSS Changes to this page

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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 19 June 2017 to 24 June 2017. 11 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.