Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Harry Gwala
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 4,847 fire detections seen from space; 1,530 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2013, 7,330.
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
- 4,847Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 1,530 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 123 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 17 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 129 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 135 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 65 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 54 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 177 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 633 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 1,721 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 1,322 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 258 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 213 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 70 ha burnt (0.007% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 222 ha burnt (0.021% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 117 ha burnt (0.011% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 98 ha burnt (0.009% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 249 ha burnt (0.024% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 774 ha burnt (0.075% 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 | 213 | 202 | 217 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 258 | 233 | 247 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 1,322 | 1,271 | 1,573 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 1,721 | 1,651 | 1,888 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 633 | 623 | 793 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 177 | 174 | 212 | 774 ha | 0.075% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 54 | 52 | 48 | 249 ha | 0.024% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 65 | 60 | 100 | 98 ha | 0.009% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 135 | 123 | 124 | 117 ha | 0.011% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 129 | 117 | 124 | 222 ha | 0.021% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 17 | 15 | 28 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 123 | 107 | 173 | 70 ha | 0.007% | 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
- 20137,330 fire detections, most in August 2013
- 20197,164 fire detections, most in July 2019; 115,212 ha burnt
- 20246,839 fire detections, most in July 2024; 146,565 ha burnt
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2024, 146,565 ha (14.1% of the place); 2019, 115,212 ha (11.1% of the place); 2020, 102,486 ha (9.9% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 4,707 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 4,062 | 65,268 ha | 6.3% |
| 2024 | 6,839 | 146,565 ha | 14.1% |
| 2023 | 5,662 | 100,911 ha | 9.7% |
| 2022 | 4,760 | 84,780 ha | 8.2% |
| 2021 | 5,747 | 100,340 ha | 9.7% |
| 2020 | 6,186 | 102,486 ha | 9.9% |
| 2019 | 7,164 | 115,212 ha | 11.1% |
| 2018 | 5,700 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 5,584 | · | · |
| 2016 | 3,914 | · | · |
| 2015 | 4,655 | · | · |
| 2014 | 6,371 | · | · |
| 2013 | 7,330 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 6,096 | · | · |
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 Harry Gwala, 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.