Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 1,600 fire detections seen from space; 459 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2019, 2,754.
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
- 1,600Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 459 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 42 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 1 fire detection |
| January 2026 | 53 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 33 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 21 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 11 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 59 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 279 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 497 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 451 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 81 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 72 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 22 ha burnt (0.006% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 36 ha burnt (0.010% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 13 ha burnt (0.004% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 22 ha burnt (0.006% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 52 ha burnt (0.014% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 314 ha burnt (0.087% 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 | 72 | 69 | 65 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 81 | 69 | 81 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 451 | 436 | 567 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 497 | 485 | 597 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 279 | 276 | 397 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 59 | 58 | 93 | 314 ha | 0.087% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 11 | 11 | 10 | 52 ha | 0.014% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 21 | 20 | 51 | 22 ha | 0.006% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 33 | 29 | 52 | 13 ha | 0.004% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 53 | 49 | 44 | 36 ha | 0.010% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 42 | 35 | 67 | 22 ha | 0.006% | 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
- 20192,754 fire detections, most in July 2019; 53,696 ha burnt
- 20132,529 fire detections, most in August 2013
- 20242,420 fire detections, most in August 2024; 56,787 ha burnt
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2024, 56,787 ha (15.8% of the place); 2019, 53,696 ha (14.9% of the place); 2023, 45,827 ha (12.7% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 1,557 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 1,514 | 30,787 ha | 8.5% |
| 2024 | 2,420 | 56,787 ha | 15.8% |
| 2023 | 2,082 | 45,827 ha | 12.7% |
| 2022 | 1,699 | 41,729 ha | 11.6% |
| 2021 | 2,070 | 42,122 ha | 11.7% |
| 2020 | 2,402 | 42,502 ha | 11.8% |
| 2019 | 2,754 | 53,696 ha | 14.9% |
| 2018 | 2,283 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 1,957 | · | · |
| 2016 | 1,768 | · | · |
| 2015 | 1,524 | · | · |
| 2014 | 2,361 | · | · |
| 2013 | 2,529 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 2,237 | · | · |
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 (Bitso-Lebe)
- Ward 2 (Cobham, Himeville)
- Ward 3 (Underberg, Bergview)
- Ward 4
- Ward 5
- Ward 6
- Ward 7
- Ward 8
- Ward 9
- Ward 10 (Polela, Bulwer)
- Ward 11
- Ward 12
- Ward 13 (Donnybrook)
- Ward 14 (Creighton)
- Ward 15
Places in each ward: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Everything we hold for Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, 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.