Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Gert Sibande
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 8,918 fire detections seen from space; 6,029 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2019, 12,347.
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
- 8,918Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 6,029 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 154 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 160 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 189 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 371 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 140 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 77 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 459 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 772 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 1,809 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 1,767 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 1,510 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 1,510 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 56 ha burnt (0.002% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 204 ha burnt (0.006% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 967 ha burnt (0.030% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 1,364 ha burnt (0.043% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 890 ha burnt (0.028% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 2,548 ha burnt (0.080% 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 | 1,510 | 1,385 | 1,589 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 1,510 | 1,437 | 1,504 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 1,767 | 1,673 | 2,011 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 1,809 | 1,743 | 2,326 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 772 | 759 | 896 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 459 | 444 | 457 | 2,548 ha | 0.080% | 99% |
| April 2026 | 77 | 76 | 112 | 890 ha | 0.028% | 99% |
| March 2026 | 140 | 130 | 206 | 1,364 ha | 0.043% | 99% |
| February 2026 | 371 | 327 | 333 | 967 ha | 0.030% | 99% |
| January 2026 | 189 | 160 | 231 | 204 ha | 0.006% | 99% |
| December 2025 | 160 | 141 | 138 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 99% |
| November 2025 | 154 | 138 | 206 | 56 ha | 0.002% | 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
- 201912,347 fire detections, most in July 2019; 181,498 ha burnt
- 202312,142 fire detections, most in September 2023; 166,449 ha burnt
- 202411,968 fire detections, most in July 2024; 243,118 ha burnt
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2024, 243,118 ha (7.6% of the place); 2019, 181,498 ha (5.7% of the place); 2023, 166,449 ha (5.2% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 8,604 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 8,112 | 101,872 ha | 3.2% |
| 2024 | 11,968 | 243,118 ha | 7.6% |
| 2023 | 12,142 | 166,449 ha | 5.2% |
| 2022 | 8,134 | 101,400 ha | 3.2% |
| 2021 | 10,744 | 166,179 ha | 5.2% |
| 2020 | 10,720 | 140,693 ha | 4.4% |
| 2019 | 12,347 | 181,498 ha | 5.7% |
| 2018 | 11,703 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 10,751 | · | · |
| 2016 | 8,171 | · | · |
| 2015 | 8,170 | · | · |
| 2014 | 11,640 | · | · |
| 2013 | 11,050 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 10,515 | · | · |
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 Gert Sibande, 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.