Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Greater Taung
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 771 fire detections seen from space; 85 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2023, 2,447.
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
- 771Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 85 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 2 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 7 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 6 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 3 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 1 fire detection |
| April 2026 | 0 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 4 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 25 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 258 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 459 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 5 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 1 fire detection |
| November 2025 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 85 ha burnt (0.015% 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 | 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 | 1 | 1 | 0 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 5 | 4 | 4 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 459 | 400 | 454 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 258 | 242 | 395 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 25 | 24 | 30 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 7 | 7 | 8 | 85 ha | 0.015% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 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
- 20232,447 fire detections, most in August 2023; 63,649 ha burnt
- 20211,632 fire detections, most in July 2021; 27,489 ha burnt
- 20221,036 fire detections, most in October 2022; 10,030 ha burnt
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2023, 63,649 ha (11.3% of the place); 2021, 27,489 ha (4.9% of the place); 2022, 10,030 ha (1.8% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 762 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 273 | 3,834 ha | 0.68% |
| 2024 | 354 | 6,867 ha | 1.2% |
| 2023 | 2,447 | 63,649 ha | 11.3% |
| 2022 | 1,036 | 10,030 ha | 1.8% |
| 2021 | 1,632 | 27,489 ha | 4.9% |
| 2020 | 577 | 9,487 ha | 1.7% |
| 2019 | 98 | 2,300 ha | 0.41% |
| 2018 | 309 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 331 | · | · |
| 2016 | 14 | · | · |
| 2015 | 82 | · | · |
| 2014 | 107 | · | · |
| 2013 | 132 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 555 | · | · |
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 (Reivilo)
- Ward 2
- Ward 3
- Ward 4
- Ward 5 (Pudimoe)
- Ward 6
- Ward 7 (Mokgareng)
- Ward 8 (Matolong, Taung)
- Ward 9 (Motakaneng, Thabasikwa)
- Ward 10
- Ward 11
- Ward 12 (Manokwane, Mhole)
- Ward 13 (Taung)
- Ward 14 (Manthestad, Pitsong)
- Ward 15 (Molelema, Pholoholo)
- Ward 16 (Longaneng, Morokweng)
- Ward 17 (Magogong)
- Ward 18 (Modutung)
- Ward 19 (Lower Majeakgoro, Upper Majeakgoro)
- Ward 20
- Ward 21 (Sekhing, Seoding)
- Ward 22
- Ward 23 (Makgori)
- Ward 24 (Mokasa)
Places in each ward: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Everything we hold for Greater Taung, 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.