Free tools · Seen from space
Fire where you are
Every ward, municipality and province, month by month since 2012: fire detections seen from space, and hectares burnt since 2018. Newest month: October 2026.
Two readings from space. Fire detections are hot spots a VIIRS satellite saw as it passed, each about 375 m across, counted where they fall in the place: a big fire gives many, a short one between passes none. Burnt area is the ground that looks burnt afterwards, from Sentinel-3 at 300 m, in hectares. Neither is a fire report from the ground.
By province
Fire detections in the last twelve months.
Eastern Cape18,825 detections
- Amahlathi
- Blue Crane Route
- Buffalo City
- Dr AB Xuma
- Dr Beyers Naude
- Elundini
- Emalahleni
- Enoch Mgijima
- Great Kei
- Ingquza Hill
- Intsika Yethu
- Inxuba Yethemba
- King Sabata Dalindyebo
- Kou-Kamma
- Kouga
- Kumkani Mhlontlo
- Makana
- Matatiele
- Mbhashe
- Mnquma
- Ndlambe
- Nelson Mandela Bay
- Ngqushwa
- Ntabankulu
- Nyandeni
- Port St Johns
- Raymond Mhlaba
- Sakhisizwe
- Senqu
- Sundays River Valley
- Umzimvubu
- Walter Sisulu
- Winnie Madikizela-Mandela
Free State5,816 detections
Gauteng6,606 detections
KwaZulu-Natal36,207 detections
- Abaqulusi
- Alfred Duma
- Big Five Hlabisa
- Dannhauser
- Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma
- eDumbe
- Emadlangeni
- Endumeni
- eThekwini
- Greater Kokstad
- Impendle
- Inkosi Langalibalele
- Inkosi Mtubatuba
- Johannes Phumani Phungula
- Jozini
- KwaDukuza
- Mandeni
- Maphumulo
- Mfolozi
- Mkhambathini
- Mpofana
- Msinga
- Mthonjaneni
- Ndwedwe
- Newcastle
- Nkandla
- Nongoma
- Nqutu
- Okhahlamba
- Ray Nkonyeni
- Richmond
- The Msunduzi
- Ulundi
- Umdoni
- Umhlabuyalingana
- uMhlathuze
- uMlalazi
- uMngeni
- uMshwathi
- uMuziwabantu
- Umvoti
- Umzimkhulu
- Umzumbe
- uPhongolo
Limpopo20,117 detections
Mpumalanga23,269 detections
Northern Cape3,155 detections
North West12,404 detections
Western Cape15,735 detections
How it is checked
The Knysna fires of June 2017 and the Table Mountain fire of April 2021 show in the right wards and months; the count from NOAA-20 follows S-NPP’s; burnt area and detections rise and fall together month by month. Detections are counts of hot spots, not of fires: one large fire is seen many times.
Source
Seen from space by American and European satellites: not fires reported on the ground.
How we worked this out
What we changed: we counted FIRMS’s detections (presumed vegetation fires only) by the 2026 ward their position falls in, and summed CLMS’s burned fraction times each pixel’s area over each ward; municipalities, districts and provinces are the sums of their wards.
Fire detections: we acknowledge the use of data and/or imagery from NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS), part of NASA’s LANCE (VIIRS 375 m, S-NPP and NOAA-20). Burnt area: generated using European Union’s Copernicus Land Monitoring Service information (Burnt Area 300 m version 4, DOI 10.2909/8fa58061-28ab-49bb-9b77-c26b50733e34), modified; this does not mean the European Union endorses us.
Dataset: burnt area and fire, release of 12 November 2026.