Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Modimolle-Mookgophong
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 1,452 fire detections seen from space; 452 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2015, 3,584.
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
- 1,452Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 452 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 13 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 17 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 33 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 30 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 19 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 8 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 13 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 96 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 259 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 118 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 274 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 572 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 | 114 ha burnt (0.011% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 84 ha burnt (0.008% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 87 ha burnt (0.008% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 48 ha burnt (0.005% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 119 ha burnt (0.011% 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 | 572 | 511 | 615 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 274 | 259 | 195 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 118 | 111 | 129 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 259 | 253 | 256 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 96 | 90 | 84 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 13 | 13 | 18 | 119 ha | 0.011% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 8 | 8 | 11 | 48 ha | 0.005% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 19 | 19 | 15 | 87 ha | 0.008% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 30 | 25 | 37 | 84 ha | 0.008% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 33 | 28 | 70 | 114 ha | 0.011% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 17 | 15 | 25 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 13 | 13 | 21 | 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
- 20153,584 fire detections, most in October 2015
- 20243,062 fire detections, most in September 2024; 55,582 ha burnt
- 20131,991 fire detections, most in September 2013
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2024, 55,582 ha (5.3% of the place); 2023, 25,508 ha (2.4% of the place); 2019, 24,055 ha (2.3% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 1,422 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 1,085 | 6,288 ha | 0.60% |
| 2024 | 3,062 | 55,582 ha | 5.3% |
| 2023 | 1,941 | 25,508 ha | 2.4% |
| 2022 | 938 | 10,024 ha | 0.95% |
| 2021 | 1,218 | 14,867 ha | 1.4% |
| 2020 | 692 | 3,491 ha | 0.33% |
| 2019 | 1,531 | 24,055 ha | 2.3% |
| 2018 | 1,265 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 1,368 | · | · |
| 2016 | 868 | · | · |
| 2015 | 3,584 | · | · |
| 2014 | 1,449 | · | · |
| 2013 | 1,991 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 1,813 | · | · |
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 (Vaalwater)
- Ward 2 (Rankin's Pass, Alma)
- Ward 3
- Ward 4 (Mookgophong)
- Ward 5 (Mookgophong)
- Ward 6 (Phagameng)
- Ward 7 (Phagameng)
- Ward 8 (Phagameng)
- Ward 9
- Ward 10 (Mookgophong)
- Ward 11 (Modimolle)
- Ward 12 (Modimolle)
- Ward 13
- Ward 14 (Roedtan)
Places in each ward: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Everything we hold for Modimolle-Mookgophong, 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.