Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Bergrivier
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 663 fire detections seen from space; 13,489 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2017, 927.
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.
The last twelve months
- 663Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 13,489 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 15 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 3 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 351 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 13 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 44 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 106 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 13 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 7 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 2 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 40 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 35 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 34 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 1,176 ha burnt (0.27% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 34 ha burnt (0.008% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 4,831 ha burnt (1.1% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 29 ha burnt (0.007% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 6,001 ha burnt (1.4% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 1,386 ha burnt (0.32% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 32 ha burnt (0.007% of the place) |
| June 2026 | not out yet |
| July 2026 | not out yet |
| August 2026 | not out yet |
| September 2026 | not out yet |
| October 2026 | not out yet |
| Month | Detections | Nominal or high confidence | NOAA-20 (second reading) | Burnt | Share of the place | Land seen |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| October 2026 | 34 | 31 | 29 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 35 | 34 | 36 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 40 | 40 | 44 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 2 | 2 | 3 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 7 | 7 | 7 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 13 | 13 | 11 | 32 ha | 0.007% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 106 | 99 | 98 | 1,386 ha | 0.32% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 44 | 32 | 65 | 6,001 ha | 1.4% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 13 | 12 | 5 | 29 ha | 0.007% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 351 | 314 | 426 | 4,831 ha | 1.1% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 34 ha | 0.008% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 15 | 14 | 17 | 1,176 ha | 0.27% | 100% |
NOAA-20 carries the same instrument as S-NPP and passes about 50 minutes apart, so its count is a second reading of the same fires, not extra fires. “Land seen” is the share of the place’s land the burnt-area product saw often enough that month to tell.
The worst years
- 2017927 fire detections, most in January 2017
- 2024855 fire detections, most in April 2024; 14,669 ha burnt
- 2016800 fire detections, most in January 2016
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2025, 15,628 ha (3.5% of the place); 2024, 14,669 ha (3.3% of the place); 2021, 10,042 ha (2.3% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 645 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 364 | 15,628 ha | 3.5% |
| 2024 | 855 | 14,669 ha | 3.3% |
| 2023 | 263 | 1,622 ha | 0.37% |
| 2022 | 566 | 7,934 ha | 1.8% |
| 2021 | 701 | 10,042 ha | 2.3% |
| 2020 | 534 | 9,332 ha | 2.1% |
| 2019 | 286 | 4,994 ha | 1.1% |
| 2018 | 176 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 927 | · | · |
| 2016 | 800 | · | · |
| 2015 | 630 | · | · |
| 2014 | 458 | · | · |
| 2013 | 593 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 500 | · | · |
Detections from February 2012 (S-NPP); burnt area from July 2018, so whole years of it from 2019. A larger place’s figures are the sums of its 2026 wards.
Each ward
- Ward 1 (Porterville, Bosdorp)
- Ward 2 (Monte Bertha)
- Ward 3 (De Hoek, Goedverwacht)
- Ward 4 (Piketberg)
- Ward 5 (Redelinghuys, Nuwedorp)
- Ward 6 (Dwarskersbos, Aurora)
- Ward 7 (Velddrif, Laaiplek)
Places in each ward: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Everything we hold for Bergrivier, on one page
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.