Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Thabazimbi
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 1,305 fire detections seen from space; 1,974 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2023, 2,832.
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
- 1,305Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 1,974 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 37 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 36 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 70 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 135 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 13 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 28 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 55 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 64 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 153 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 236 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 217 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 261 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 396 ha burnt (0.035% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 88 ha burnt (0.008% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 540 ha burnt (0.048% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 470 ha burnt (0.042% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 210 ha burnt (0.019% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 270 ha burnt (0.024% 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 | 261 | 248 | 236 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 217 | 210 | 200 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 236 | 225 | 261 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 153 | 148 | 219 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 64 | 61 | 48 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 55 | 52 | 45 | 270 ha | 0.024% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 28 | 28 | 26 | 210 ha | 0.019% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 13 | 13 | 32 | 470 ha | 0.042% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 135 | 116 | 86 | 540 ha | 0.048% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 70 | 61 | 68 | 88 ha | 0.008% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 36 | 35 | 29 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 37 | 36 | 52 | 396 ha | 0.035% | 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
- 20232,832 fire detections, most in September 2023; 35,462 ha burnt
- 20241,585 fire detections, most in September 2024; 19,168 ha burnt
- 20211,554 fire detections, most in September 2021; 16,074 ha burnt
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2023, 35,462 ha (3.2% of the place); 2024, 19,168 ha (1.7% of the place); 2021, 16,074 ha (1.4% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 1,232 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 810 | 10,311 ha | 0.92% |
| 2024 | 1,585 | 19,168 ha | 1.7% |
| 2023 | 2,832 | 35,462 ha | 3.2% |
| 2022 | 1,239 | 7,003 ha | 0.63% |
| 2021 | 1,554 | 16,074 ha | 1.4% |
| 2020 | 1,132 | 5,627 ha | 0.50% |
| 2019 | 1,097 | 10,276 ha | 0.92% |
| 2018 | 1,067 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 1,519 | · | · |
| 2016 | 524 | · | · |
| 2015 | 1,233 | · | · |
| 2014 | 631 | · | · |
| 2013 | 1,435 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 731 | · | · |
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 (Kwaggasvlakte, Matlabas)
- Ward 2 (Thabazimbi)
- Ward 3
- Ward 4 (Leeupoort Vakansiedorp)
- Ward 5 (Dwaalboom, R.P.M. Amandelbult)
- Ward 6
- Ward 7
- Ward 8 (Northam)
- Ward 9 (Thabazimbi)
- Ward 10
- Ward 11
- Ward 12 (Thabazimbi)
Places in each ward: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Everything we hold for Thabazimbi, 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.