Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Lesedi
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 215 fire detections seen from space; 238 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2017, 711.
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
- 215Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 238 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 2 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 0 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 2 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 9 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 4 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 1 fire detection |
| May 2026 | 8 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 44 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 101 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 34 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 5 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 5 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 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 85 ha burnt (0.057% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 132 ha burnt (0.089% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 21 ha burnt (0.014% 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 | 5 | 3 | 16 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 5 | 5 | 7 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 34 | 33 | 43 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 101 | 97 | 103 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 44 | 41 | 40 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 8 | 8 | 4 | 21 ha | 0.014% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 132 ha | 0.089% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 9 | 8 | 18 | 85 ha | 0.057% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 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
- 2017711 fire detections, most in August 2017
- 2013648 fire detections, most in August 2013
- 2012629 fire detections, most in July 2012
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2021, 9,936 ha (6.7% of the place); 2019, 9,242 ha (6.2% of the place); 2024, 8,805 ha (5.9% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 213 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 259 | 4,374 ha | 2.9% |
| 2024 | 296 | 8,805 ha | 5.9% |
| 2023 | 588 | 8,499 ha | 5.7% |
| 2022 | 374 | 5,257 ha | 3.5% |
| 2021 | 538 | 9,936 ha | 6.7% |
| 2020 | 349 | 7,108 ha | 4.8% |
| 2019 | 593 | 9,242 ha | 6.2% |
| 2018 | 507 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 711 | · | · |
| 2016 | 277 | · | · |
| 2015 | 341 | · | · |
| 2014 | 536 | · | · |
| 2013 | 648 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 629 | · | · |
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 (Ratanda)
- Ward 2 (Ratanda)
- Ward 3 (Ratanda)
- Ward 4 (Ratanda)
- Ward 5 (Ratanda)
- Ward 6 (Shalimar Ridge)
- Ward 7 (Rensburgdorp, Shalimar Ridge)
- Ward 8 (Rensburgdorp)
- Ward 9 (Heidelberg, Industrial)
- Ward 10 (Bergsig, Jameson Park)
- Ward 11 (Rensburgdorp)
- Ward 12 (Aston Lake, Aston Woods)
- Ward 13 (Impumelelo)
Places in each ward: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Everything we hold for Lesedi, 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.