Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Johannes Phumani Phungula
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 885 fire detections seen from space; 127 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2013, 1,574.
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
- 885Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 127 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 29 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 2 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 13 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 36 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 15 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 14 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 42 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 119 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 313 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 178 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 69 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 55 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 6.3 ha burnt (0.004% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 6.8 ha burnt (0.004% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 8.9 ha burnt (0.005% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 33 ha burnt (0.019% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 72 ha burnt (0.043% 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 | 55 | 52 | 49 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 69 | 61 | 48 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 178 | 169 | 211 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 313 | 296 | 375 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 119 | 117 | 120 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 42 | 40 | 56 | 72 ha | 0.043% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 14 | 13 | 6 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 15 | 15 | 19 | 33 ha | 0.019% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 36 | 31 | 23 | 8.9 ha | 0.005% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 13 | 12 | 14 | 6.8 ha | 0.004% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 2 | 2 | 12 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 29 | 28 | 47 | 6.3 ha | 0.004% | 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
- 20131,574 fire detections, most in July 2013
- 20201,307 fire detections, most in August 2020; 10,321 ha burnt
- 20191,300 fire detections, most in July 2019; 11,409 ha burnt
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2019, 11,409 ha (6.8% of the place); 2024, 10,370 ha (6.2% of the place); 2020, 10,321 ha (6.2% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 854 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 823 | 7,253 ha | 4.3% |
| 2024 | 1,219 | 10,370 ha | 6.2% |
| 2023 | 909 | 5,019 ha | 3.0% |
| 2022 | 843 | 6,233 ha | 3.7% |
| 2021 | 810 | 6,449 ha | 3.9% |
| 2020 | 1,307 | 10,321 ha | 6.2% |
| 2019 | 1,300 | 11,409 ha | 6.8% |
| 2018 | 1,034 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 1,230 | · | · |
| 2016 | 824 | · | · |
| 2015 | 1,210 | · | · |
| 2014 | 1,230 | · | · |
| 2013 | 1,574 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 1,123 | · | · |
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
- Ward 2 (Ixopo, Penhalonga)
- Ward 3
- Ward 4 (Ixopo)
- Ward 5
- Ward 6
- Ward 7
- Ward 8
- Ward 9
- Ward 10 (KwaBhidla)
- Ward 11
- Ward 12
- Ward 13 (Highflats)
- Ward 14 (uMzumbe)
Places in each ward: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Everything we hold for Johannes Phumani Phungula, 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.