Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Mthonjaneni
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 890 fire detections seen from space; 579 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2014, 1,325.
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
- 890Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 579 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 20 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 1 fire detection |
| January 2026 | 32 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 53 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 20 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 3 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 71 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 65 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 193 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 242 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 118 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 72 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 20 ha burnt (0.012% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 22 ha burnt (0.013% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 132 ha burnt (0.079% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 40 ha burnt (0.024% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 15 ha burnt (0.009% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 350 ha burnt (0.21% 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 | 72 | 69 | 62 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 118 | 105 | 112 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 242 | 237 | 240 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 193 | 185 | 258 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 65 | 64 | 81 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 71 | 68 | 77 | 350 ha | 0.21% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 3 | 3 | 11 | 15 ha | 0.009% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 20 | 19 | 22 | 40 ha | 0.024% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 53 | 50 | 58 | 132 ha | 0.079% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 32 | 24 | 46 | 22 ha | 0.013% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 1 | 0 | 10 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 20 | 20 | 17 | 20 ha | 0.012% | 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
- 20141,325 fire detections, most in June 2014
- 20121,109 fire detections, most in August 2012
- 20211,100 fire detections, most in July 2021; 7,637 ha burnt
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2021, 7,637 ha (4.6% of the place); 2024, 7,490 ha (4.5% of the place); 2019, 6,523 ha (3.9% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 869 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 572 | 2,199 ha | 1.3% |
| 2024 | 912 | 7,490 ha | 4.5% |
| 2023 | 826 | 3,878 ha | 2.3% |
| 2022 | 468 | 1,901 ha | 1.1% |
| 2021 | 1,100 | 7,637 ha | 4.6% |
| 2020 | 737 | 3,997 ha | 2.4% |
| 2019 | 1,051 | 6,523 ha | 3.9% |
| 2018 | 460 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 714 | · | · |
| 2016 | 301 | · | · |
| 2015 | 287 | · | · |
| 2014 | 1,325 | · | · |
| 2013 | 975 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 1,109 | · | · |
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
- Ward 2 (Melmoth)
- Ward 3
- Ward 4
- Ward 5
- Ward 6
- Ward 7
- Ward 8
- Ward 9 (eNkwenkwe)
- Ward 10
- Ward 11
- Ward 12
- Ward 13
Places in each ward: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Everything we hold for Mthonjaneni, 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.