Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Emfuleni
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 665 fire detections seen from space; 852 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2014, 607.
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
- 665Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 852 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 2 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 4 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 5 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 9 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 0 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 4 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 33 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 113 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 118 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 169 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 88 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 120 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 | 0.0 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 | 852 ha burnt (0.88% 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 | 120 | 117 | 114 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 88 | 88 | 80 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 169 | 166 | 186 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 118 | 115 | 159 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 113 | 107 | 102 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 33 | 32 | 44 | 852 ha | 0.88% | 99% |
| April 2026 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 99% |
| March 2026 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 99% |
| February 2026 | 9 | 9 | 6 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 99% |
| January 2026 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 99% |
| December 2025 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 99% |
| November 2025 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 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
- 2014607 fire detections, most in August 2014
- 2018583 fire detections, most in September 2018
- 2017572 fire detections, most in June 2017
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2024, 6,430 ha (6.7% of the place); 2020, 5,338 ha (5.5% of the place); 2021, 5,198 ha (5.4% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 659 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 385 | 4,292 ha | 4.4% |
| 2024 | 430 | 6,430 ha | 6.7% |
| 2023 | 508 | 5,097 ha | 5.3% |
| 2022 | 355 | 3,225 ha | 3.3% |
| 2021 | 439 | 5,198 ha | 5.4% |
| 2020 | 399 | 5,338 ha | 5.5% |
| 2019 | 380 | 4,172 ha | 4.3% |
| 2018 | 583 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 572 | · | · |
| 2016 | 299 | · | · |
| 2015 | 313 | · | · |
| 2014 | 607 | · | · |
| 2013 | 504 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 461 | · | · |
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 (Three Rivers, Three Rivers East)
- Ward 2 (Boiketlong)
- Ward 3 (Boipatong, CC)
- Ward 4 (Bedworth Park, Vanderbijlpark)
- Ward 5 (Flora Gardens, Vanderbijlpark)
- Ward 6 (Bophelong)
- Ward 7 (Flora Gardens)
- Ward 8 (Boipatong)
- Ward 9 (Vanderbijlpark)
- Ward 10 (CC)
- Ward 11 (Homer, Dicksonville)
- Ward 12 (Sharpeville, Dicksonville)
- Ward 13 (Sharpeville)
- Ward 14 (Bedworth Park)
- Ward 15 (Vereeniging, Duncanville)
- Ward 16 (Arconpark, Redan)
- Ward 17 (Cyferpan, Boiketlong)
- Ward 18 (Beverley Hills, Evaton Small Farms)
- Ward 19 (Evaton North)
- Ward 20 (Evaton North, Stretford)
- Ward 21 (Aerovaal, Dadaville)
- Ward 22 (Tshepiso)
- Ward 23 (Bonanne, Bophelong)
- Ward 24 (Beverley Hills)
- Ward 25 (Johandeo AH)
- Ward 26 (Evaton North)
- Ward 27 (Westside Park)
- Ward 28 (Beverley Hills)
- Ward 29 (Evaton Small Farms)
- Ward 30
- Ward 31 (Boiketlong)
- Ward 32
- Ward 33
- Ward 34
- Ward 35
- Ward 36 (Sebokeng)
- Ward 37 (Sebokeng)
- Ward 38
- Ward 39
- Ward 40 (Lakeside Estates)
- Ward 41 (Lakeside)
- Ward 42 (Evaton, Evaton Small Farms)
- Ward 43 (Evaton North, Beverley Hills)
- Ward 44 (Evaton)
- Ward 45 (Falcon Ridge, Sonlandpark)
Places in each ward: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Everything we hold for Emfuleni, 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.