Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Inxuba Yethemba
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 383 fire detections seen from space; 3,811 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2018, 823.
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
- 383Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 3,811 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 4 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 25 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 215 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 94 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 1 fire detection |
| April 2026 | 7 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 0 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 1 fire detection |
| July 2026 | 1 fire detection |
| August 2026 | 5 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 7 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 23 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 148 ha burnt (0.013% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 189 ha burnt (0.016% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 1,819 ha burnt (0.16% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 1,594 ha burnt (0.14% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 48 ha burnt (0.004% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 13 ha burnt (0.001% 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 | 23 | 23 | 14 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 7 | 7 | 6 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 5 | 5 | 7 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 1 | 1 | 0 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 1 | 1 | 1 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 7 | 7 | 4 | 13 ha | 0.001% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 1 | 1 | 9 | 48 ha | 0.004% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 94 | 92 | 55 | 1,594 ha | 0.14% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 215 | 199 | 166 | 1,819 ha | 0.16% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 25 | 21 | 29 | 189 ha | 0.016% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 4 | 4 | 7 | 148 ha | 0.013% | 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
- 2018823 fire detections, most in December 2018
- 2017601 fire detections, most in November 2017
- 2013534 fire detections, most in November 2013
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2024, 4,038 ha (0.35% of the place); 2019, 1,898 ha (0.16% of the place); 2025, 1,431 ha (0.12% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 354 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 139 | 1,431 ha | 0.12% |
| 2024 | 408 | 4,038 ha | 0.35% |
| 2023 | 172 | 1,242 ha | 0.11% |
| 2022 | 48 | 142 ha | 0.013% |
| 2021 | 97 | 244 ha | 0.021% |
| 2020 | 142 | 1,148 ha | 0.098% |
| 2019 | 194 | 1,898 ha | 0.16% |
| 2018 | 823 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 601 | · | · |
| 2016 | 470 | · | · |
| 2015 | 243 | · | · |
| 2014 | 327 | · | · |
| 2013 | 534 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 396 | · | · |
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 (Lingelihle)
- Ward 2 (Michausdal, Lingelihle)
- Ward 3 (Lingelihle, Michausdal)
- Ward 4 (Michausdal)
- Ward 5 (Nxuba)
- Ward 6 (Michausdal)
- Ward 7 (Midros, Rosmead)
- Ward 8 (Kwanonzame, Midros)
- Ward 9 (Middelburg, Kwanonzame)
Places in each ward: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Everything we hold for Inxuba Yethemba, 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.