Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Cape Agulhas
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 754 fire detections seen from space; 9,268 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2017, 1,265.
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
- 754Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 9,268 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 420 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 3 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 251 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 4 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 26 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 21 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 0 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 7 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 6 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 11 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 2 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 3 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 5,398 ha burnt (1.6% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 120 ha burnt (0.035% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 3,586 ha burnt (1.0% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 19 ha burnt (0.005% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 96 ha burnt (0.028% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 49 ha burnt (0.014% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% 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 | 3 | 3 | 6 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 2 | 2 | 2 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 11 | 10 | 10 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 6 | 5 | 10 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 7 | 7 | 12 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 99% |
| April 2026 | 21 | 21 | 19 | 49 ha | 0.014% | 99% |
| March 2026 | 26 | 19 | 29 | 96 ha | 0.028% | 98% |
| February 2026 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 19 ha | 0.005% | 98% |
| January 2026 | 251 | 231 | 459 | 3,586 ha | 1.0% | 98% |
| December 2025 | 3 | 3 | 8 | 120 ha | 0.035% | 98% |
| November 2025 | 420 | 385 | 439 | 5,398 ha | 1.6% | 98% |
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
- 20171,265 fire detections, most in February 2017
- 20251,199 fire detections, most in November 2025; 10,319 ha burnt
- 2022559 fire detections, most in February 2022; 4,222 ha burnt
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2025, 10,319 ha (3.0% of the place); 2024, 5,812 ha (1.7% of the place); 2022, 4,222 ha (1.2% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 331 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 1,199 | 10,319 ha | 3.0% |
| 2024 | 409 | 5,812 ha | 1.7% |
| 2023 | 74 | 88 ha | 0.025% |
| 2022 | 559 | 4,222 ha | 1.2% |
| 2021 | 87 | 237 ha | 0.068% |
| 2020 | 74 | 66 ha | 0.019% |
| 2019 | 519 | 2,880 ha | 0.83% |
| 2018 | 378 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 1,265 | · | · |
| 2016 | 283 | · | · |
| 2015 | 223 | · | · |
| 2014 | 279 | · | · |
| 2013 | 204 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 179 | · | · |
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 (Napier, Nuwerus)
- Ward 2 (Carolineville, Klipdale)
- Ward 3 (Bredasdorp)
- Ward 4 (Bredasdorp, Protem)
- Ward 5 (Struisbaai, L'Agulhas)
- Ward 6 (Arniston, De Hoop Village)
Places in each ward: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Everything we hold for Cape Agulhas, 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.