Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Sedibeng
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 1,224 fire detections seen from space; 1,766 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2014, 1,999.
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
- 1,224Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 1,766 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 9 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 4 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 13 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 23 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 5 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 5 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 78 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 235 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 344 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 259 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 103 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 146 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 | 85 ha burnt (0.020% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 161 ha burnt (0.039% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 1,520 ha burnt (0.36% 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 | 146 | 141 | 150 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 103 | 103 | 104 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 259 | 250 | 298 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 344 | 333 | 449 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 235 | 222 | 248 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 78 | 73 | 73 | 1,520 ha | 0.36% | 99% |
| April 2026 | 5 | 5 | 8 | 161 ha | 0.039% | 99% |
| March 2026 | 5 | 5 | 9 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 99% |
| February 2026 | 23 | 21 | 24 | 85 ha | 0.020% | 99% |
| January 2026 | 13 | 11 | 13 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 99% |
| December 2025 | 4 | 3 | 8 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 99% |
| November 2025 | 9 | 7 | 8 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 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
- 20141,999 fire detections, most in August 2014
- 20171,971 fire detections, most in July 2017
- 20121,961 fire detections, most in August 2012
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2024, 28,059 ha (6.7% of the place); 2019, 24,051 ha (5.8% of the place); 2021, 23,995 ha (5.8% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 1,211 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 1,089 | 14,817 ha | 3.6% |
| 2024 | 1,273 | 28,059 ha | 6.7% |
| 2023 | 1,827 | 22,632 ha | 5.4% |
| 2022 | 1,229 | 15,147 ha | 3.6% |
| 2021 | 1,682 | 23,995 ha | 5.8% |
| 2020 | 1,189 | 18,627 ha | 4.5% |
| 2019 | 1,596 | 24,051 ha | 5.8% |
| 2018 | 1,646 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 1,971 | · | · |
| 2016 | 831 | · | · |
| 2015 | 1,120 | · | · |
| 2014 | 1,999 | · | · |
| 2013 | 1,726 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 1,961 | · | · |
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 Sedibeng, 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.