Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Thaba Chweu
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 2,048 fire detections seen from space; 2,084 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2024, 4,533.
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
- 2,048Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 2,084 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 10 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 60 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 29 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 55 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 2 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 5 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 142 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 303 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 592 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 368 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 252 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 230 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 7.7 ha burnt (0.001% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 84 ha burnt (0.015% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 213 ha burnt (0.037% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 248 ha burnt (0.043% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 57 ha burnt (0.010% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 1,474 ha burnt (0.26% 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 | 230 | 202 | 232 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 252 | 236 | 211 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 368 | 341 | 440 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 592 | 574 | 792 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 303 | 302 | 271 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 142 | 139 | 147 | 1,474 ha | 0.26% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 5 | 5 | 22 | 57 ha | 0.010% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 2 | 2 | 15 | 248 ha | 0.043% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 55 | 49 | 58 | 213 ha | 0.037% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 29 | 26 | 36 | 84 ha | 0.015% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 60 | 52 | 57 | 7.7 ha | 0.001% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 10 | 8 | 18 | 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
- 20244,533 fire detections, most in July 2024; 84,116 ha burnt
- 20193,578 fire detections, most in July 2019; 49,672 ha burnt
- 20133,572 fire detections, most in July 2013
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2024, 84,116 ha (14.7% of the place); 2019, 49,672 ha (8.7% of the place); 2021, 46,362 ha (8.1% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 1,978 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 2,602 | 42,651 ha | 7.5% |
| 2024 | 4,533 | 84,116 ha | 14.7% |
| 2023 | 3,101 | 40,058 ha | 7.0% |
| 2022 | 2,345 | 35,384 ha | 6.2% |
| 2021 | 3,280 | 46,362 ha | 8.1% |
| 2020 | 2,719 | 35,818 ha | 6.3% |
| 2019 | 3,578 | 49,672 ha | 8.7% |
| 2018 | 2,842 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 2,583 | · | · |
| 2016 | 2,573 | · | · |
| 2015 | 2,675 | · | · |
| 2014 | 2,646 | · | · |
| 2013 | 3,572 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 2,788 | · | · |
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 (Mashishing)
- Ward 2 (Mashishing, Kellysville)
- Ward 3 (Mashishing)
- Ward 4
- Ward 5 (Kellysville, Draaikraal)
- Ward 6 (Mondi Village)
- Ward 7 (Mount Anderson, Sabie)
- Ward 8 (Apara, Didimala)
- Ward 9 (Dipping, Kanana)
- Ward 10 (Graskop, Ngwetsintshage)
- Ward 11 (Hendriksdal, Makusteren)
- Ward 12 (Lydenburg)
- Ward 13 (Pilgrim's Rest)
- Ward 14 (Lydenburg, Kellysville)
Places in each ward: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Everything we hold for Thaba Chweu, 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.