Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Chris Hani
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 2,630 fire detections seen from space; 5,071 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2023, 9,172.
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
- 2,630Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 5,071 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 118 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 37 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 252 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 103 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 8 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 20 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 16 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 53 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 622 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 977 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 254 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 170 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 853 ha burnt (0.023% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 271 ha burnt (0.007% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 1,938 ha burnt (0.053% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 1,649 ha burnt (0.045% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 119 ha burnt (0.003% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 93 ha burnt (0.003% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 148 ha burnt (0.004% 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 | 170 | 159 | 146 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 254 | 251 | 241 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 977 | 953 | 1,008 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 622 | 610 | 655 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 53 | 52 | 64 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 16 | 16 | 22 | 148 ha | 0.004% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 20 | 20 | 14 | 93 ha | 0.003% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 8 | 8 | 25 | 119 ha | 0.003% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 103 | 101 | 61 | 1,649 ha | 0.045% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 252 | 217 | 245 | 1,938 ha | 0.053% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 37 | 31 | 40 | 271 ha | 0.007% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 118 | 91 | 90 | 853 ha | 0.023% | 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
- 20239,172 fire detections, most in August 2023; 141,326 ha burnt
- 20247,751 fire detections, most in August 2024; 131,022 ha burnt
- 20216,281 fire detections, most in July 2021; 125,095 ha burnt
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2023, 141,326 ha (3.9% of the place); 2024, 131,022 ha (3.6% of the place); 2021, 125,095 ha (3.4% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 2,475 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 2,842 | 48,862 ha | 1.3% |
| 2024 | 7,751 | 131,022 ha | 3.6% |
| 2023 | 9,172 | 141,326 ha | 3.9% |
| 2022 | 2,503 | 36,398 ha | 1.00% |
| 2021 | 6,281 | 125,095 ha | 3.4% |
| 2020 | 2,041 | 36,190 ha | 0.99% |
| 2019 | 2,262 | 38,319 ha | 1.1% |
| 2018 | 2,620 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 2,530 | · | · |
| 2016 | 2,275 | · | · |
| 2015 | 2,458 | · | · |
| 2014 | 4,931 | · | · |
| 2013 | 6,097 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 5,458 | · | · |
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.
Everything we hold for Chris Hani, 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.