Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Big Five Hlabisa
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 900 fire detections seen from space; 1,619 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2013, 2,473.
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
- 900Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 1,619 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 11 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 2 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 4 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 74 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 4 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 18 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 39 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 24 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 102 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 173 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 360 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 89 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 14 ha burnt (0.004% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 518 ha burnt (0.15% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 56 ha burnt (0.016% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 874 ha burnt (0.25% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 157 ha burnt (0.045% 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 | 89 | 78 | 62 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 360 | 321 | 407 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 173 | 165 | 156 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 102 | 99 | 110 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 24 | 23 | 30 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 39 | 35 | 29 | 157 ha | 0.045% | 86% |
| April 2026 | 18 | 18 | 26 | 874 ha | 0.25% | 86% |
| March 2026 | 4 | 4 | 8 | 56 ha | 0.016% | 86% |
| February 2026 | 74 | 71 | 34 | 518 ha | 0.15% | 86% |
| January 2026 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 14 ha | 0.004% | 86% |
| December 2025 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 86% |
| November 2025 | 11 | 9 | 8 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 86% |
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
- 20132,473 fire detections, most in August 2013
- 20192,091 fire detections, most in July 2019; 25,403 ha burnt
- 20121,982 fire detections, most in August 2012
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2019, 25,403 ha (7.3% of the place); 2024, 25,084 ha (7.2% of the place); 2023, 14,984 ha (4.3% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 887 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 580 | 3,305 ha | 0.95% |
| 2024 | 906 | 25,084 ha | 7.2% |
| 2023 | 1,080 | 14,984 ha | 4.3% |
| 2022 | 612 | 6,329 ha | 1.8% |
| 2021 | 1,026 | 10,168 ha | 2.9% |
| 2020 | 690 | 4,385 ha | 1.3% |
| 2019 | 2,091 | 25,403 ha | 7.3% |
| 2018 | 532 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 607 | · | · |
| 2016 | 106 | · | · |
| 2015 | 1,070 | · | · |
| 2014 | 1,673 | · | · |
| 2013 | 2,473 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 1,982 | · | · |
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
- Ward 2
- Ward 3
- Ward 4 (Bird Island, Hell's Gates)
- Ward 5 (Hluhluwe, Bushlands)
- Ward 6
- Ward 7
- Ward 8 (Hilltop Camp, Buffalo Boma)
- Ward 9
- Ward 10
- Ward 11 (KwaMayakazi, Zidonini)
- Ward 12 (Hlabisa)
- Ward 13 (Mabhokisini)
- Ward 14 (KwaQunwane)
Places in each ward: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Everything we hold for Big Five Hlabisa, 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.