Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Nkangala
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 8,483 fire detections seen from space; 5,607 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2019, 12,363.
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
- 8,483Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 5,607 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 111 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 96 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 110 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 159 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 65 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 71 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 129 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 586 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 2,629 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 1,932 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 1,231 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 1,364 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 97 ha burnt (0.006% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 40 ha burnt (0.002% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 162 ha burnt (0.010% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 585 ha burnt (0.035% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 1,224 ha burnt (0.073% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 1,493 ha burnt (0.089% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 2,006 ha burnt (0.12% 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 | 1,364 | 1,260 | 1,402 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 1,231 | 1,174 | 1,191 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 1,932 | 1,824 | 2,242 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 2,629 | 2,547 | 3,689 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 586 | 574 | 635 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 129 | 125 | 142 | 2,006 ha | 0.12% | 99% |
| April 2026 | 71 | 69 | 80 | 1,493 ha | 0.089% | 99% |
| March 2026 | 65 | 62 | 90 | 1,224 ha | 0.073% | 99% |
| February 2026 | 159 | 147 | 128 | 585 ha | 0.035% | 99% |
| January 2026 | 110 | 106 | 112 | 162 ha | 0.010% | 99% |
| December 2025 | 96 | 82 | 103 | 40 ha | 0.002% | 99% |
| November 2025 | 111 | 100 | 111 | 97 ha | 0.006% | 99% |
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
- 201912,363 fire detections, most in July 2019; 151,535 ha burnt
- 202412,067 fire detections, most in July 2024; 211,967 ha burnt
- 202311,702 fire detections, most in August 2023; 142,628 ha burnt
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2024, 211,967 ha (12.6% of the place); 2019, 151,535 ha (9.0% of the place); 2021, 148,960 ha (8.9% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 8,276 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 7,325 | 101,407 ha | 6.1% |
| 2024 | 12,067 | 211,967 ha | 12.6% |
| 2023 | 11,702 | 142,628 ha | 8.5% |
| 2022 | 7,737 | 99,283 ha | 5.9% |
| 2021 | 10,425 | 148,960 ha | 8.9% |
| 2020 | 9,473 | 120,921 ha | 7.2% |
| 2019 | 12,363 | 151,535 ha | 9.0% |
| 2018 | 8,903 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 8,950 | · | · |
| 2016 | 7,872 | · | · |
| 2015 | 10,239 | · | · |
| 2014 | 9,047 | · | · |
| 2013 | 10,492 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 8,067 | · | · |
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 Nkangala, 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.