Burned area
satellite only156ha
Perimeter published by EFFIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- perimeter revised on 2 March 2022
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
TR · Türkiye · –
Yüksekova fire, 25 July 2019 Yüksekova
Out · last detection 29 Jul 2019, 23:09 UTC
The fire started on 25 July 2019 in Yüksekova, Türkiye, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 156 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 70th largest in Hakkâri since 2016 (of 111 with a page). Number 89 in Türkiye in 2019, of 138.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only7days
25 Jul 2019 to 31 Jul 2019: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 29 Jul 2019, 23:09 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only25 Jul 2019
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 25 Jul 2019
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only17
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 76 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 25 Jul 2019 – 31 Jul 2019
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only150MW
Total radiative power on 28 July 2019; hotspots that day: 4.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 28 Jul 2019
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model55.0FWI · extreme
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 43.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 25 Jul 2019, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model32.6°C · 16% RH
High of 32.6 °C and minimum humidity of 16% on 31 July 2019; gusts of 54 km/h on 25 July 2019.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 25 Jul 2019 – 31 Jul 2019
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
· reconstructed perimeterEFFIS (Copernicus) revises the perimeter
What was saved on 24 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 156 ha
- Dates
- 25 Jul 2019 – 31 Jul 2019
- Name
- Yüksekova
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/yuksekova-2019-07-2?v=2026-10-24A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire yuksekova-2019-07-2.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-07-25 | 0 | 0 | 29.3 | 18.5 | 15 | 12.2 | 53.6 | 0 | 55 | extremo | 1 |
| 2019-07-26 | 3 | 30 | 30 | 12.6 | 18 | 9.9 | 41.4 | 0 | 49 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-07-27 | 3 | 15 | 29.9 | 14.6 | 27 | 9.9 | 43.9 | 0 | 43 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-07-28 | 4 | 150 | 29.1 | 15.7 | 23 | 12.6 | 50.4 | 0 | 45.3 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-07-29 | 7 | 43 | 27.9 | 16.4 | 27 | 7.4 | 27.4 | 0 | 38.8 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-07-30 | 0 | 0 | 31 | 15.6 | 21 | 9.6 | 38.2 | 0 | 42.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-07-31 | 0 | 0 | 32.6 | 16.9 | 16 | 11.1 | 43.9 | 0 | 46.9 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-08-01 | 0 | 0 | 32.9 | 14.4 | 11 | 13.2 | 52.2 | 0 | 59.3 | extremo | 0 |
| 2019-08-02 | 0 | 0 | 30.8 | 15.5 | 17 | 12.9 | 55.1 | 0 | 57 | extremo | 0 |
| 2019-08-03 | 0 | 0 | 29.8 | 17.7 | 24 | 9.6 | 38.9 | 0 | 43.9 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2019-08-04 | 0 | 0 | 30.3 | 15.5 | 25 | 13.1 | 52.2 | 0 | 49.6 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2019-08-05 | 0 | 0 | 30 | 16.1 | 21 | 10.5 | 42.5 | 0 | 45.6 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2019-08-06 | 0 | 0 | 30.3 | 14.5 | 22 | 9.3 | 42.1 | 0 | 43.9 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2019-08-07 | 0 | 0 | 30 | 13.6 | 24 | 9.7 | 38.5 | 0 | 38.8 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2019-08-08 | 0 | 0 | 29 | 14.8 | 30 | 10.5 | 40.3 | 0 | 39.4 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2019-08-09 | 0 | 0 | 29.9 | 13.4 | 28 | 10.6 | 41.8 | 0 | 37.2 | alto | 0 |
| 2019-08-10 | 0 | 0 | 30.9 | 14.7 | 25 | 12 | 48.2 | 0 | 40.7 | muy_alto | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: EFFIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 156ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 7days
- 25 Jul 2019 – 31 Jul 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 25 Jul
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 17
- in a single hotspot: 76 MW
- Danger at start
- 55
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 60MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
25 Jul31 Jul
29 Jul 2019
How it evolved, day by day
26 Jul
27 Jul
28 Jul
29 Jul
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
33°high
54km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity
It had gone 43 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.
What happened to each town
-
156 ha reached on 26 Jul0.1 %
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.
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)
Started with Extreme FWI: 62 % of the area in Türkiye Strong wind: 28 % of the area in Türkiye
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Jul | 29.3 °C | 15 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 26 Jul | 30.0 °C | 18 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 27 Jul | 29.9 °C | 27 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 28 Jul | 29.1 °C | 23 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 29 Jul | 27.9 °C | 27 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 30 Jul | 31.0 °C | 21 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 31 Jul | 32.6 °C | 16 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 1 Aug after | 32.9 °C | 11 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 2 Aug after | 30.8 °C | 17 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 3 Aug after | 29.8 °C | 24 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 4 Aug after | 30.3 °C | 25 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 5 Aug after | 30.0 °C | 21 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 6 Aug after | 30.3 °C | 22 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 7 Aug after | 30.0 °C | 24 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 8 Aug after | 29.0 °C | 30 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 9 Aug after | 29.9 °C | 28 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 10 Aug after | 30.9 °C | 25 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 55.0, a minimum humidity of 15% and 43 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 17.
FWI at the start
55.0
Minimum humidity
15 %
Days without rain
43
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Yüksekova fire, 25 July 2019
156 ha
7 days
FWI 55.0
Min. humidity 15 %
Beytüşşebap fire, August 2016
251 ha
8 days
FWI 55.5
Min. humidity 14 %
114 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Çukurca fire, July 2021
226 ha
5 days
FWI 55.7
Min. humidity 17 %
24 km away, in 2021
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Pervari fire, August 2016
950 ha
3 days
FWI 53.5
Min. humidity 15 %
160 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Çukurca fire, July 2016
1,005 ha
7 days
FWI 54.0
Min. humidity 18 %
43 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Derecik fire, August 2016
121 ha
2 days
FWI 56.1
Min. humidity 13 %
58 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
What happened to them
- 4 days
- median duration
- 270 ha
- median area
- 12 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- 2.1 mm
- rain at the end (median; 2 of 17 had it)
It stayed below its twins: 156 ha against a median of 270 ha. It lasted 7 days, against 4 days.
In 15 of 17, 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
—first rain
—no rain in ten days
54km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 31 Jul, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 2 of 17, 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.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 18 Jul 2019
After · 7 Aug 2019
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 27 July 2019 the air beside the fire reached 26 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 20: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak26 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1046 µg/m³
WHO 15
23 Jul25 Jul27 Jul29 Jul31 Jul
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 · 17Every 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 time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,500 haAl-Amadiya1 August 2019 · 5 days · 12 km away
- 1,725 haAl-AmadiyaSeptember 2020 · 11 days · 16 km away
- 1,473 haAl-AmadiyaJuly 2019 · 5 days · 31 km away
- 1,623 haAl-AmadiyaSeptember 2017 · 5 days · 32 km away
- 1,492 haYüksekova7 November 2021 · 7 days · 33 km away
- 1,426 haAl-Amadiya9 August 2016 · 8 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Yüksekova fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 25 July 2019 to 31 July 2019 (7 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 July 2019 to 26 July 2019.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 156 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Yüksekova (156 ha, 0.1 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Yüksekova and came within 34.1 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 32.6 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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.
- 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: 17. Their median duration was 4 days and their median area 270 ha; 12 % went past 1,000 ha. In 15 of 17, 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.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 25 July 2019 to 26 July 2019. 17 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.
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.