Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Siyancuma
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 238 fire detections seen from space; 2,057 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2022, 1,204.
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
- 238Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 2,057 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 23 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 26 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 25 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 0 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 2 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 2 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 11 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 48 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 51 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 28 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 1 fire detection |
| October 2026 | 21 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 353 ha burnt (0.023% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 1,558 ha burnt (0.10% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 28 ha burnt (0.002% 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 | 118 ha burnt (0.008% 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 | 21 | 15 | 4 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 1 | 1 | 1 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 28 | 27 | 25 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 51 | 47 | 68 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 48 | 47 | 56 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 11 | 10 | 15 | 118 ha | 0.008% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 25 | 13 | 17 | 28 ha | 0.002% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 26 | 23 | 35 | 1,558 ha | 0.10% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 23 | 12 | 27 | 353 ha | 0.023% | 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
- 20221,204 fire detections, most in October 2022; 15,278 ha burnt
- 2021740 fire detections, most in September 2021; 24,434 ha burnt
- 2023603 fire detections, most in December 2023; 8,874 ha burnt
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2021, 24,434 ha (1.6% of the place); 2022, 15,278 ha (1.00% of the place); 2023, 8,874 ha (0.58% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 189 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 252 | 4,523 ha | 0.29% |
| 2024 | 227 | 6,389 ha | 0.42% |
| 2023 | 603 | 8,874 ha | 0.58% |
| 2022 | 1,204 | 15,278 ha | 1.00% |
| 2021 | 740 | 24,434 ha | 1.6% |
| 2020 | 166 | 2,566 ha | 0.17% |
| 2019 | 134 | 3,327 ha | 0.22% |
| 2018 | 149 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 335 | · | · |
| 2016 | 153 | · | · |
| 2015 | 171 | · | · |
| 2014 | 163 | · | · |
| 2013 | 241 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 166 | · | · |
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 (Griekwastad)
- Ward 2
- Ward 3 (Phelindaba)
- Ward 4 (Douglas, Villeria)
- Ward 5
- Ward 6 (Schmidtsdrif, Kalkdam)
- Ward 7 (Campbell)
Places in each ward: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Everything we hold for Siyancuma, 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.