Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Molemole
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 618 fire detections seen from space; 8.2 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2023, 861.
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
- 618Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 8.2 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 6 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 4 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 1 fire detection |
| February 2026 | 3 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 0 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 0 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 5 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 13 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 198 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 200 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 46 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 142 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 | 8.2 ha burnt (0.002% 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 | 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 | 142 | 119 | 167 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 46 | 39 | 43 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 200 | 191 | 238 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 198 | 185 | 273 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 13 | 13 | 8 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 8.2 ha | 0.002% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 6 | 4 | 5 | 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
- 2023861 fire detections, most in September 2023; 11,913 ha burnt
- 2025765 fire detections, most in August 2025; 14,407 ha burnt
- 2022578 fire detections, most in August 2022; 11,762 ha burnt
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2025, 14,407 ha (4.0% of the place); 2023, 11,913 ha (3.3% of the place); 2022, 11,762 ha (3.2% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 608 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 765 | 14,407 ha | 4.0% |
| 2024 | 308 | 4,689 ha | 1.3% |
| 2023 | 861 | 11,913 ha | 3.3% |
| 2022 | 578 | 11,762 ha | 3.2% |
| 2021 | 230 | 2,733 ha | 0.75% |
| 2020 | 173 | 1,125 ha | 0.31% |
| 2019 | 238 | 2,746 ha | 0.76% |
| 2018 | 237 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 92 | · | · |
| 2016 | 101 | · | · |
| 2015 | 184 | · | · |
| 2014 | 564 | · | · |
| 2013 | 164 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 331 | · | · |
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 (Munnik, Soekmekaar (Morebeng))
- Ward 2
- Ward 3
- Ward 4 (Ramokgopa)
- Ward 5
- Ward 6
- Ward 7
- Ward 8
- Ward 9 (Mmatseke, Mphakane)
- Ward 10 (Mogwadi)
- Ward 11
- Ward 12 (Ga-Maponto)
- Ward 13
- Ward 14 (Ga-Moleele)
- Ward 15 (Flora, Ga-Mabitsela)
- Ward 16 (Ga-Maribana)
Places in each ward: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Everything we hold for Molemole, 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.