Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Chief Albert Luthuli
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 2,637 fire detections seen from space; 2,488 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2024, 4,593.
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
- 2,637Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 2,488 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 25 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 29 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 41 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 135 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 12 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 15 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 119 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 238 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 701 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 662 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 348 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 312 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 47 ha burnt (0.008% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 98 ha burnt (0.018% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 561 ha burnt (0.10% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 54 ha burnt (0.010% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 97 ha burnt (0.017% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 1,631 ha burnt (0.29% 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 | 312 | 280 | 333 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 348 | 330 | 351 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 662 | 624 | 733 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 701 | 674 | 896 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 238 | 237 | 257 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 119 | 112 | 105 | 1,631 ha | 0.29% | 99% |
| April 2026 | 15 | 15 | 17 | 97 ha | 0.017% | 99% |
| March 2026 | 12 | 12 | 24 | 54 ha | 0.010% | 99% |
| February 2026 | 135 | 119 | 107 | 561 ha | 0.10% | 99% |
| January 2026 | 41 | 31 | 54 | 98 ha | 0.018% | 99% |
| December 2025 | 29 | 25 | 29 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 99% |
| November 2025 | 25 | 23 | 52 | 47 ha | 0.008% | 99% |
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
- 20244,593 fire detections, most in July 2024; 90,938 ha burnt
- 20194,408 fire detections, most in July 2019; 62,598 ha burnt
- 20234,162 fire detections, most in September 2023; 60,312 ha burnt
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2024, 90,938 ha (16.4% of the place); 2019, 62,598 ha (11.3% of the place); 2023, 60,312 ha (10.9% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 2,583 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 2,836 | 44,505 ha | 8.0% |
| 2024 | 4,593 | 90,938 ha | 16.4% |
| 2023 | 4,162 | 60,312 ha | 10.9% |
| 2022 | 2,702 | 35,607 ha | 6.4% |
| 2021 | 3,354 | 50,835 ha | 9.2% |
| 2020 | 3,561 | 53,845 ha | 9.7% |
| 2019 | 4,408 | 62,598 ha | 11.3% |
| 2018 | 3,619 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 3,221 | · | · |
| 2016 | 2,634 | · | · |
| 2015 | 2,406 | · | · |
| 2014 | 3,847 | · | · |
| 2013 | 3,232 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 3,185 | · | · |
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 (Fernie)
- Ward 4
- Ward 5 (Dundonald)
- Ward 6 (Swalluwnest)
- Ward 7 (Mayflower, Mpuluzi)
- Ward 8
- Ward 9 (Dundonald)
- Ward 10
- Ward 11 (Glenmore)
- Ward 12 (Msauli, Diepgezet)
- Ward 13 (Tjakastad)
- Ward 14 (eLukwatini)
- Ward 15 (Mzamo, Pieter De Bruinpark)
- Ward 16 (Lochiel)
- Ward 17 (Badplaas)
- Ward 18
- Ward 19 (Kalwerskraal, Steynsdorp)
- Ward 20
- Ward 21 (Carolina)
- Ward 22 (Silobela)
- Ward 23
- Ward 24
- Ward 25 (Nhlazatje)
Places in each ward: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Everything we hold for Chief Albert Luthuli, 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.