Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Dr Pixley Ka Isaka Seme
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 1,078 fire detections seen from space; 1,009 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2023, 1,682.
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
- 1,078Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 1,009 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 18 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 3 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 10 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 2 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 5 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 10 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 14 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 59 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 133 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 243 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 248 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 333 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 5.6 ha burnt (0.001% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 87 ha burnt (0.017% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 4.3 ha burnt (0.001% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 243 ha burnt (0.047% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 468 ha burnt (0.090% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 201 ha burnt (0.038% 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 | 333 | 299 | 368 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 248 | 236 | 234 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 243 | 224 | 231 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 133 | 130 | 130 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 59 | 57 | 62 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 14 | 14 | 7 | 201 ha | 0.038% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 10 | 10 | 4 | 468 ha | 0.090% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 5 | 5 | 13 | 243 ha | 0.047% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 4.3 ha | 0.001% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 10 | 7 | 6 | 87 ha | 0.017% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 18 | 18 | 34 | 5.6 ha | 0.001% | 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
- 20231,682 fire detections, most in October 2023; 36,550 ha burnt
- 20181,640 fire detections, most in October 2018
- 20171,548 fire detections, most in October 2017
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2024, 56,267 ha (10.8% of the place); 2023, 36,550 ha (7.0% of the place); 2021, 36,454 ha (7.0% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 1,057 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 1,140 | 21,127 ha | 4.0% |
| 2024 | 1,295 | 56,267 ha | 10.8% |
| 2023 | 1,682 | 36,550 ha | 7.0% |
| 2022 | 1,050 | 24,471 ha | 4.7% |
| 2021 | 1,463 | 36,454 ha | 7.0% |
| 2020 | 1,479 | 29,413 ha | 5.6% |
| 2019 | 1,154 | 31,287 ha | 6.0% |
| 2018 | 1,640 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 1,548 | · | · |
| 2016 | 747 | · | · |
| 2015 | 858 | · | · |
| 2014 | 1,090 | · | · |
| 2013 | 1,495 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 1,182 | · | · |
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 (Volksrust)
- Ward 2
- Ward 3 (Volksrust)
- Ward 4 (Volksrust)
- Ward 5 (Wakkerstroom)
- Ward 6 (Perdekop)
- Ward 7 (Amersfoort)
- Ward 8
- Ward 9
- Ward 10
- Ward 11 (Daggakraal)
Places in each ward: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Everything we hold for Dr Pixley Ka Isaka Seme, 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.