Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Moqhaka
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 121 fire detections seen from space; 0.0 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2023, 736.
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
- 121Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 0.0 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 2 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 2 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 6 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 4 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 0 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 1 fire detection |
| May 2026 | 1 fire detection |
| June 2026 | 6 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 40 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 41 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 17 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 1 fire detection |
| 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 | 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 | 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 | 1 | 1 | 1 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 17 | 16 | 18 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 41 | 39 | 44 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 40 | 38 | 45 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 6 | 6 | 7 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 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
- 2023736 fire detections, most in September 2023; 22,873 ha burnt
- 2018664 fire detections, most in September 2018
- 2021484 fire detections, most in July 2021; 10,210 ha burnt
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2023, 22,873 ha (2.9% of the place); 2021, 10,210 ha (1.3% of the place); 2020, 8,082 ha (1.0% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 117 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 130 | 2,709 ha | 0.34% |
| 2024 | 226 | 2,976 ha | 0.38% |
| 2023 | 736 | 22,873 ha | 2.9% |
| 2022 | 286 | 5,241 ha | 0.66% |
| 2021 | 484 | 10,210 ha | 1.3% |
| 2020 | 327 | 8,082 ha | 1.0% |
| 2019 | 202 | 1,504 ha | 0.19% |
| 2018 | 664 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 235 | · | · |
| 2016 | 49 | · | · |
| 2015 | 191 | · | · |
| 2014 | 385 | · | · |
| 2013 | 183 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 312 | · | · |
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 (Steynsrus)
- Ward 2 (Steynsrus, Goodehoof)
- Ward 3 (Kroonstad, Kroonheuwel)
- Ward 4
- Ward 5
- Ward 6 (Maokeng)
- Ward 7 (Kroonheuwel, Noordhoek)
- Ward 8 (Gelukwaarts)
- Ward 9 (Maokeng)
- Ward 10 (Maokeng, Gelukwaarts)
- Ward 11 (Phomolong)
- Ward 12 (Brent Park, Industria)
- Ward 13 (Gelukwaarts)
- Ward 14 (Noordhoek, Seeisoville)
- Ward 15 (Goedgedacht, Gunhill)
- Ward 16 (Viljoenskroon)
- Ward 17 (Rammulotsi)
- Ward 18
- Ward 19 (Rammulotsi)
- Ward 20 (Vierfontein, Vaal Reefs Mine)
Places in each ward: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Everything we hold for Moqhaka, 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.