Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Makana
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 190 fire detections seen from space; 1,556 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2013, 519.
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
- 190Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 1,556 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 33 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 57 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 66 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 7 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 3 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 8 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 8 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 1 fire detection |
| July 2026 | 1 fire detection |
| August 2026 | 1 fire detection |
| September 2026 | 5 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 0 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 260 ha burnt (0.059% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 741 ha burnt (0.17% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 317 ha burnt (0.072% 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 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 238 ha burnt (0.054% 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 | 0 | 0 | 2 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 5 | 5 | 1 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 1 | 1 | 3 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 1 | 1 | 1 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 1 | 1 | 0 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 238 ha | 0.054% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 8 | 8 | 11 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 7 | 6 | 2 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 66 | 55 | 45 | 317 ha | 0.072% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 57 | 49 | 50 | 741 ha | 0.17% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 33 | 29 | 31 | 260 ha | 0.059% | 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
- 2013519 fire detections, most in October 2013
- 2024374 fire detections, most in August 2024; 1,705 ha burnt
- 2014371 fire detections, most in September 2014
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2024, 1,705 ha (0.39% of the place); 2025, 1,288 ha (0.29% of the place); 2023, 1,219 ha (0.28% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 100 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 151 | 1,288 ha | 0.29% |
| 2024 | 374 | 1,705 ha | 0.39% |
| 2023 | 335 | 1,219 ha | 0.28% |
| 2022 | 51 | 25 ha | 0.005% |
| 2021 | 79 | 209 ha | 0.049% |
| 2020 | 182 | 503 ha | 0.12% |
| 2019 | 231 | 1,209 ha | 0.28% |
| 2018 | 188 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 85 | · | · |
| 2016 | 364 | · | · |
| 2015 | 91 | · | · |
| 2014 | 371 | · | · |
| 2013 | 519 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 157 | · | · |
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 (Alicedale, Riebeek-Oos)
- Ward 2 (Phaphamani)
- Ward 3 (Kingswood)
- Ward 4 (Cradock Heights, Oatlands)
- Ward 5 (Phaphamani, Tantyi)
- Ward 6 (Joza)
- Ward 7 (Tantyi)
- Ward 8 (Makhanda, Central)
- Ward 9 (Joza, Fingo)
- Ward 10 (Fingo)
- Ward 11 (Joza)
- Ward 12 (Rhodes)
- Ward 13 (Salem)
Places in each ward: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Everything we hold for Makana, 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.