Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Garden Route
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 2,488 fire detections seen from space; 19,970 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2018, 10,354.
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
- 2,488Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 19,970 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 361 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 445 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 1,214 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 178 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 116 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 74 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 6 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 15 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 15 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 26 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 28 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 10 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 2,588 ha burnt (0.11% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 2,438 ha burnt (0.10% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 13,795 ha burnt (0.59% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 804 ha burnt (0.034% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 240 ha burnt (0.010% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 105 ha burnt (0.004% 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 | 10 | 10 | 30 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 28 | 28 | 24 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 26 | 26 | 33 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 15 | 15 | 20 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 15 | 15 | 9 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 74 | 72 | 61 | 105 ha | 0.004% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 116 | 105 | 152 | 240 ha | 0.010% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 178 | 161 | 109 | 804 ha | 0.034% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 1,214 | 1,144 | 1,139 | 13,795 ha | 0.59% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 445 | 415 | 451 | 2,438 ha | 0.10% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 361 | 350 | 471 | 2,588 ha | 0.11% | 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
- 201810,354 fire detections, most in November 2018
- 20177,068 fire detections, most in November 2017
- 20164,729 fire detections, most in December 2016
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2025, 15,243 ha (0.66% of the place); 2024, 10,499 ha (0.45% of the place); 2022, 9,950 ha (0.43% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 1,682 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 2,367 | 15,243 ha | 0.66% |
| 2024 | 1,555 | 10,499 ha | 0.45% |
| 2023 | 1,054 | 7,037 ha | 0.30% |
| 2022 | 1,635 | 9,950 ha | 0.43% |
| 2021 | 758 | 4,097 ha | 0.18% |
| 2020 | 857 | 6,119 ha | 0.26% |
| 2019 | 1,447 | 5,615 ha | 0.24% |
| 2018 | 10,354 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 7,068 | · | · |
| 2016 | 4,729 | · | · |
| 2015 | 3,499 | · | · |
| 2014 | 1,274 | · | · |
| 2013 | 1,603 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 1,666 | · | · |
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 Garden Route, 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.