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TR · Türkiye ·

Yeşilhisar fire, 13 December 2021 Develi, Yeşilhisar

Out · last detection 13 Dec 2021, 23:35 UTC

The fire started on 13 December 2021 in Yeşilhisar, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 515 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 3th largest in Kayseri since 2016 (of 24 with a page). Number 38 in Türkiye in 2021, of 138.

The power measured by the satellite is low (7.2 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
515ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
13 Dec 2021 – 13 Dec 2021
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
13 Dec
2021
Heat detections
7
in a single hotspot: 7 MW
Danger at start
6
Low · FWI index
Average daily power
26MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Dec13 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

13 Dec 2021 · 26 MW · 7

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

The weather it burned in

15°high
41km/h · peak gust
42%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 14 Dec.

This area had burned before

15% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 79 ha in 2018.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.3% of the area of London (5.2 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. Develi 65,322 inhabitants · 26.0 km from the centre
    378 ha
    0.2 %
  2. Yeşilhisar 17,525 inhabitants · 17.2 km from the centre where it started
    137 ha reached on 13 Dec
    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

  • Other natural land100 %

Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside 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)
13 Dec 15.2 °C 42 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
14 Dec after 13.6 °C 46 % 44 km/h 1.4 mm Very low 1

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 5.6, a minimum humidity of 42% and 4 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 15.

FWI at the start 5.6
Minimum humidity 42 %
Days without rain 4
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Eskil fire, October 2022
106 ha 2 days FWI 7.0 Min. humidity 44 % 166 km away, in 2022

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

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
267 ha
median area
0 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.1 mm
rain at the end (median; 13 of 15 had it)

It was 1.9 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 1 day, against 2 days.

Only 4 of its 15 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 2 of 15, 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 2.1 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

1.4 mmfirst rain
14 Decthe day after it ended
41km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 13 Dec, and on 14 Dec 1.4 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 13 of 15, with a median of 2.1 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 · 6 Dec 2021
After · 20 Dec 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.

Detections table · 7Every 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 Yeşilhisar fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 13 December 2021 and 13 December 2021: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 515 hectares (5.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Develi (378 ha, 0.2 %); Yeşilhisar (137 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Yeşilhisar and came within 17.2 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 15.2 °C, humidity dropped to 42 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 6, class Low.
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: 15. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 267 ha; 0 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 4 of its 15 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 2 of 15, 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 2.1 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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 7 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.

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.