Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Mopani
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 2,373 fire detections seen from space; 1,217 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2023, 6,561.
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
- 2,373Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 1,217 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 54 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 27 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 16 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 77 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 10 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 17 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 136 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 81 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 369 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 447 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 599 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 540 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 4.4 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 24 ha burnt (0.001% 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 | 1,189 ha burnt (0.059% 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 | 540 | 455 | 529 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 599 | 553 | 654 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 447 | 411 | 574 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 369 | 356 | 507 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 81 | 79 | 85 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 136 | 133 | 92 | 1,189 ha | 0.059% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 17 | 17 | 17 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 10 | 8 | 8 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 77 | 52 | 71 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 16 | 13 | 29 | 24 ha | 0.001% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 27 | 23 | 32 | 4.4 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 54 | 48 | 64 | 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
- 20236,561 fire detections, most in September 2023; 67,844 ha burnt
- 20146,034 fire detections, most in October 2014
- 20214,133 fire detections, most in July 2021; 77,969 ha burnt
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2021, 77,969 ha (3.9% of the place); 2023, 67,844 ha (3.4% of the place); 2022, 37,987 ha (1.9% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 2,292 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 3,077 | 37,060 ha | 1.8% |
| 2024 | 2,501 | 21,705 ha | 1.1% |
| 2023 | 6,561 | 67,844 ha | 3.4% |
| 2022 | 4,109 | 37,987 ha | 1.9% |
| 2021 | 4,133 | 77,969 ha | 3.9% |
| 2020 | 1,558 | 11,303 ha | 0.57% |
| 2019 | 2,230 | 10,517 ha | 0.52% |
| 2018 | 1,819 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 1,616 | · | · |
| 2016 | 1,056 | · | · |
| 2015 | 1,767 | · | · |
| 2014 | 6,034 | · | · |
| 2013 | 3,565 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 3,719 | · | · |
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.
Everything we hold for Mopani, 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.