Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Overstrand
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 2,031 fire detections seen from space; 21,269 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2024, 751.
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
- 2,031Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 21,269 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 201 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 199 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 1,512 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 0 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 3 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 7 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 3 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 10 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 3 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 2 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 78 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 13 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 1,229 ha burnt (0.73% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 2,409 ha burnt (1.4% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 17,624 ha burnt (10.5% 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 | 6.8 ha burnt (0.004% 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 | 13 | 13 | 10 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 78 | 73 | 50 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 2 | 2 | 7 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 3 | 3 | 10 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 10 | 10 | 10 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 3 | 3 | 10 | 6.8 ha | 0.004% | 98% |
| April 2026 | 7 | 7 | 3 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 98% |
| March 2026 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 98% |
| February 2026 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 98% |
| January 2026 | 1,512 | 1,380 | 1,834 | 17,624 ha | 10.5% | 98% |
| December 2025 | 199 | 179 | 126 | 2,409 ha | 1.4% | 98% |
| November 2025 | 201 | 181 | 158 | 1,229 ha | 0.73% | 98% |
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
- 2024751 fire detections, most in January 2024; 8,867 ha burnt
- 2019742 fire detections, most in January 2019; 6,711 ha burnt
- 2016724 fire detections, most in January 2016
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2024, 8,867 ha (5.3% of the place); 2019, 6,711 ha (4.0% of the place); 2022, 5,477 ha (3.3% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 1,631 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 669 | 5,183 ha | 3.1% |
| 2024 | 751 | 8,867 ha | 5.3% |
| 2023 | 163 | 429 ha | 0.26% |
| 2022 | 520 | 5,477 ha | 3.3% |
| 2021 | 87 | 376 ha | 0.23% |
| 2020 | 92 | 81 ha | 0.049% |
| 2019 | 742 | 6,711 ha | 4.0% |
| 2018 | 414 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 192 | · | · |
| 2016 | 724 | · | · |
| 2015 | 414 | · | · |
| 2014 | 112 | · | · |
| 2013 | 174 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 323 | · | · |
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 (Stanford, Die Kop)
- Ward 2 (Gansbaai, Masakhane)
- Ward 3 (Hermanus, Mosselrivier)
- Ward 4 (Mount Pleasant)
- Ward 5 (Zwelihle)
- Ward 6 (Zwelihle)
- Ward 7 (Sandbaai)
- Ward 8 (Hawston)
- Ward 9 (Mountain View, Palmiet)
- Ward 10 (Betty's Bay, Silver Sands)
- Ward 11 (Eluxolweni, Baardskeerdersbos)
- Ward 12 (Zwelihle, Mount Pleasant)
- Ward 13 (Onrusrivier, Vermont)
- Ward 14 (Blompark, De Kelders)
- Ward 15 (Kleinmond, Heuningklip)
Places in each ward: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Everything we hold for Overstrand, 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.