Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in The Msunduzi
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 355 fire detections seen from space; 0.0 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2019, 725.
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
- 355Fire 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 | 5 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 0 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 1 fire detection |
| February 2026 | 2 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 1 fire detection |
| April 2026 | 2 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 14 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 34 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 162 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 87 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 43 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 4 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 | 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 | 4 | 4 | 6 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 43 | 38 | 50 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 87 | 83 | 108 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 162 | 151 | 206 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 34 | 33 | 32 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 14 | 14 | 8 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 5 | 5 | 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
- 2019725 fire detections, most in July 2019; 7,479 ha burnt
- 2014617 fire detections, most in July 2014
- 2021594 fire detections, most in July 2021; 5,527 ha burnt
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2019, 7,479 ha (10.0% of the place); 2024, 7,195 ha (9.6% of the place); 2021, 5,527 ha (7.4% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 350 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 285 | 2,603 ha | 3.5% |
| 2024 | 430 | 7,195 ha | 9.6% |
| 2023 | 485 | 5,029 ha | 6.7% |
| 2022 | 258 | 2,295 ha | 3.1% |
| 2021 | 594 | 5,527 ha | 7.4% |
| 2020 | 499 | 4,802 ha | 6.4% |
| 2019 | 725 | 7,479 ha | 10.0% |
| 2018 | 331 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 384 | · | · |
| 2016 | 337 | · | · |
| 2015 | 386 | · | · |
| 2014 | 617 | · | · |
| 2013 | 579 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 545 | · | · |
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 (Landauville, Blackridge)
- Ward 2
- Ward 3
- Ward 4
- Ward 5 (Zibomvini)
- Ward 6
- Ward 7
- Ward 8
- Ward 9
- Ward 10
- Ward 11 (Newtown, Tafuleni)
- Ward 12 (Dambuza, Zibomvini)
- Ward 13 (Westgate)
- Ward 14 (Tafuleni)
- Ward 15 (iMbali)
- Ward 16
- Ward 17
- Ward 18
- Ward 19 (Slangspruit)
- Ward 20 (Landauville)
- Ward 21 (Edendale)
- Ward 22 (iMbali, Edendale)
- Ward 23 (Ashdown)
- Ward 24 (Bisley, Oribi)
- Ward 25 (Athlone, Chase Valley)
- Ward 26 (Blackridge, Boughton)
- Ward 27 (Pietermaritzburg)
- Ward 28 (Northdale)
- Ward 29 (Raisethorpe)
- Ward 30 (Bombay Heights, Raisethorpe)
- Ward 31 (Allandale, Lotusville)
- Ward 32 (Woodlands)
- Ward 33 (Manor, Scottsville)
- Ward 34 (Eastwood)
- Ward 35 (Lincoln Meade, Mountain Rise)
- Ward 36 (Cleland, Meadows)
- Ward 37 (Ashburton, Epworth)
- Ward 38 (Glenwood)
- Ward 39
- Ward 40 (Winterskloof)
- Ward 41 (Slangspruit, iMbali)
Places in each ward: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Everything we hold for The Msunduzi, 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.