Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Mossel Bay
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 140 fire detections seen from space; 386 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2018, 822.
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
- 140Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 386 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 57 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 6 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 50 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 2 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 5 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 6 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 2 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 1 fire detection |
| July 2026 | 3 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 2 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 3 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 3 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 156 ha burnt (0.078% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 6.6 ha burnt (0.003% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 223 ha burnt (0.11% 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 | 3 | 3 | 2 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 3 | 3 | 2 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 2 | 2 | 3 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 3 | 3 | 7 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 1 | 1 | 0 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 6 | 6 | 9 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 5 | 3 | 8 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 50 | 41 | 40 | 223 ha | 0.11% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 6 | 5 | 7 | 6.6 ha | 0.003% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 57 | 56 | 70 | 156 ha | 0.078% | 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
- 2018822 fire detections, most in January 2018
- 2017658 fire detections, most in April 2017
- 2016583 fire detections, most in December 2016
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2025, 2,593 ha (1.3% of the place); 2024, 1,088 ha (0.54% of the place); 2019, 346 ha (0.17% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 77 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 458 | 2,593 ha | 1.3% |
| 2024 | 246 | 1,088 ha | 0.54% |
| 2023 | 63 | 83 ha | 0.042% |
| 2022 | 88 | 68 ha | 0.033% |
| 2021 | 91 | 235 ha | 0.12% |
| 2020 | 114 | 162 ha | 0.081% |
| 2019 | 164 | 346 ha | 0.17% |
| 2018 | 822 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 658 | · | · |
| 2016 | 583 | · | · |
| 2015 | 367 | · | · |
| 2014 | 139 | · | · |
| 2013 | 357 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 142 | · | · |
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 (D'Almeida, Kwanonqaba)
- Ward 2 (Kwanonqaba)
- Ward 3 (Kwanonqaba)
- Ward 4 (Riverside, Klein-Brakrivier)
- Ward 5 (Die Heuwel, Hersham)
- Ward 6 (Heiderand, Mossel Bay Golf Estate)
- Ward 7 (Hartenbos Heuwels, Bartlesfontain)
- Ward 8 (Mossel Bay, Da Nova)
- Ward 9 (New Sunnyside)
- Ward 10 (Bayview, Diasstrand)
- Ward 11 (Danabaai)
- Ward 12 (D'Almeida, Diasstrand)
- Ward 13 (D'Almeida)
- Ward 14 (Greenhaven, Friemersheim)
- Ward 15 (Kwanonqaba)
- Ward 16 (Bergsig, Reebok)
- Ward 17 (Herbertsdale, Boggomsbaai)
Places in each ward: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Everything we hold for Mossel Bay, 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.