Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in iLembe
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 807 fire detections seen from space; 426 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2014, 1,905.
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
- 807Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 426 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 3 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 5 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 5 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 10 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 5 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 11 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 91 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 114 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 217 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 201 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 118 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 27 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 | 11 ha burnt (0.003% 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 | 165 ha burnt (0.050% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 250 ha burnt (0.076% 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 | 27 | 27 | 18 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 118 | 95 | 92 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 201 | 199 | 177 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 217 | 205 | 244 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 114 | 108 | 116 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 91 | 87 | 107 | 250 ha | 0.076% | 99% |
| April 2026 | 11 | 10 | 23 | 165 ha | 0.050% | 99% |
| March 2026 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 99% |
| February 2026 | 10 | 8 | 16 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 99% |
| January 2026 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 11 ha | 0.003% | 99% |
| December 2025 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 99% |
| November 2025 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 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
- 20141,905 fire detections, most in June 2014
- 20121,441 fire detections, most in August 2012
- 20191,391 fire detections, most in July 2019; 5,385 ha burnt
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2024, 12,096 ha (3.7% of the place); 2019, 5,385 ha (1.6% of the place); 2021, 4,467 ha (1.4% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 799 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 582 | 1,755 ha | 0.54% |
| 2024 | 1,157 | 12,096 ha | 3.7% |
| 2023 | 647 | 1,970 ha | 0.60% |
| 2022 | 518 | 902 ha | 0.28% |
| 2021 | 1,112 | 4,467 ha | 1.4% |
| 2020 | 1,313 | 3,713 ha | 1.1% |
| 2019 | 1,391 | 5,385 ha | 1.6% |
| 2018 | 464 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 1,048 | · | · |
| 2016 | 638 | · | · |
| 2015 | 442 | · | · |
| 2014 | 1,905 | · | · |
| 2013 | 1,199 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 1,441 | · | · |
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 iLembe, 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.