Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Dipaleseng
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 161 fire detections seen from space; 40 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2018, 502.
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
- 161Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 40 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 1 fire detection |
| December 2025 | 9 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 0 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 4 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 0 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 1 fire detection |
| May 2026 | 1 fire detection |
| June 2026 | 20 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 62 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 32 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 19 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 12 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 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 20 ha burnt (0.008% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 20 ha burnt (0.008% 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 | 12 | 12 | 17 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 19 | 19 | 16 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 32 | 32 | 59 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 62 | 62 | 55 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 20 | 19 | 34 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 99% |
| April 2026 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 20 ha | 0.008% | 99% |
| March 2026 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 99% |
| February 2026 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 20 ha | 0.008% | 99% |
| January 2026 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 99% |
| December 2025 | 9 | 9 | 4 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 99% |
| November 2025 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 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
- 2018502 fire detections, most in September 2018
- 2021489 fire detections, most in August 2021; 13,087 ha burnt
- 2019469 fire detections, most in October 2019; 7,911 ha burnt
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2021, 13,087 ha (5.0% of the place); 2019, 7,911 ha (3.0% of the place); 2024, 5,211 ha (2.0% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 151 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 216 | 3,106 ha | 1.2% |
| 2024 | 154 | 5,211 ha | 2.0% |
| 2023 | 310 | 5,008 ha | 1.9% |
| 2022 | 267 | 4,762 ha | 1.8% |
| 2021 | 489 | 13,087 ha | 5.0% |
| 2020 | 281 | 5,110 ha | 2.0% |
| 2019 | 469 | 7,911 ha | 3.0% |
| 2018 | 502 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 353 | · | · |
| 2016 | 198 | · | · |
| 2015 | 171 | · | · |
| 2014 | 373 | · | · |
| 2013 | 441 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 462 | · | · |
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 (Siyathemba)
- Ward 2 (Rich View)
- Ward 3 (Balfour, Greylingstad)
- Ward 4 (Siyathemba)
- Ward 5 (Grootvlei)
- Ward 6 (Nthorwane)
Places in each ward: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Everything we hold for Dipaleseng, 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.