Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Ngaka Modiri Molema
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 3,394 fire detections seen from space; 1,215 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2023, 7,891.
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
- 3,394Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 1,215 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 44 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 13 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 40 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 104 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 1 fire detection |
| April 2026 | 13 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 54 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 406 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 1,515 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 767 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 255 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 182 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 | 118 ha burnt (0.004% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 21 ha burnt (0.001% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 43 ha burnt (0.002% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 1,033 ha burnt (0.037% 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 | 182 | 154 | 169 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 255 | 237 | 298 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 767 | 701 | 1,021 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 1,515 | 1,445 | 1,767 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 406 | 387 | 424 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 54 | 53 | 68 | 1,033 ha | 0.037% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 13 | 12 | 12 | 43 ha | 0.002% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 21 ha | 0.001% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 104 | 74 | 74 | 118 ha | 0.004% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 40 | 38 | 35 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 13 | 12 | 19 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 44 | 34 | 17 | 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
- 20237,891 fire detections, most in August 2023; 184,877 ha burnt
- 20214,984 fire detections, most in September 2021; 105,520 ha burnt
- 20224,645 fire detections, most in September 2022; 76,103 ha burnt
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2023, 184,877 ha (6.6% of the place); 2020, 112,250 ha (4.0% of the place); 2021, 105,520 ha (3.8% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 3,337 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 2,077 | 43,701 ha | 1.6% |
| 2024 | 1,706 | 33,831 ha | 1.2% |
| 2023 | 7,891 | 184,877 ha | 6.6% |
| 2022 | 4,645 | 76,103 ha | 2.7% |
| 2021 | 4,984 | 105,520 ha | 3.8% |
| 2020 | 3,792 | 112,250 ha | 4.0% |
| 2019 | 1,152 | 20,045 ha | 0.71% |
| 2018 | 3,610 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 1,431 | · | · |
| 2016 | 324 | · | · |
| 2015 | 1,313 | · | · |
| 2014 | 1,443 | · | · |
| 2013 | 1,002 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 2,514 | · | · |
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 Ngaka Modiri Molema, 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.