Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 1,127 fire detections seen from space; 133 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2023, 12,971.
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
- 1,127Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 133 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 16 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 14 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 42 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 5 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 1 fire detection |
| April 2026 | 0 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 7 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 45 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 344 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 583 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 23 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 47 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 85 ha burnt (0.002% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 18 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 14 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 16 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 | 47 | 40 | 21 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 23 | 22 | 33 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 583 | 512 | 602 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 344 | 322 | 515 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 45 | 42 | 57 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 7 | 7 | 5 | 16 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 5 | 4 | 12 | 14 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 42 | 32 | 30 | 18 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 14 | 10 | 13 | 85 ha | 0.002% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 16 | 16 | 8 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 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
- 202312,971 fire detections, most in September 2023; 363,611 ha burnt
- 20225,035 fire detections, most in October 2022; 81,197 ha burnt
- 20214,595 fire detections, most in September 2021; 101,714 ha burnt
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2023, 363,611 ha (8.3% of the place); 2021, 101,714 ha (2.3% of the place); 2022, 81,197 ha (1.9% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 1,097 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 607 | 6,900 ha | 0.16% |
| 2024 | 1,369 | 27,079 ha | 0.62% |
| 2023 | 12,971 | 363,611 ha | 8.3% |
| 2022 | 5,035 | 81,197 ha | 1.9% |
| 2021 | 4,595 | 101,714 ha | 2.3% |
| 2020 | 1,641 | 43,018 ha | 0.98% |
| 2019 | 389 | 6,682 ha | 0.15% |
| 2018 | 1,378 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 808 | · | · |
| 2016 | 146 | · | · |
| 2015 | 685 | · | · |
| 2014 | 422 | · | · |
| 2013 | 378 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 2,412 | · | · |
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 Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati, 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.