Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Ugu
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 1,692 fire detections seen from space; 2,201 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2014, 3,322.
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
- 1,692Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 2,201 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 40 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 14 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 42 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 30 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 16 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 31 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 204 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 325 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 659 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 236 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 44 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 51 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 5.2 ha burnt (0.001% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 35 ha burnt (0.007% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 14 ha burnt (0.003% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 376 ha burnt (0.079% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 1,771 ha burnt (0.37% 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 | 51 | 51 | 50 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 44 | 41 | 42 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 236 | 233 | 251 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 659 | 630 | 849 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 325 | 318 | 380 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 204 | 196 | 255 | 1,771 ha | 0.37% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 31 | 28 | 66 | 376 ha | 0.079% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 16 | 16 | 27 | 14 ha | 0.003% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 30 | 29 | 38 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 42 | 42 | 35 | 35 ha | 0.007% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 14 | 13 | 20 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 40 | 34 | 33 | 5.2 ha | 0.001% | 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
- 20143,322 fire detections, most in June 2014
- 20203,198 fire detections, most in August 2020; 21,895 ha burnt
- 20192,885 fire detections, most in July 2019; 18,479 ha burnt
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2020, 21,895 ha (4.6% of the place); 2024, 20,182 ha (4.2% of the place); 2019, 18,479 ha (3.9% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 1,638 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 1,112 | 6,812 ha | 1.4% |
| 2024 | 2,586 | 20,182 ha | 4.2% |
| 2023 | 1,411 | 6,077 ha | 1.3% |
| 2022 | 1,631 | 8,766 ha | 1.8% |
| 2021 | 1,717 | 10,879 ha | 2.3% |
| 2020 | 3,198 | 21,895 ha | 4.6% |
| 2019 | 2,885 | 18,479 ha | 3.9% |
| 2018 | 2,049 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 1,638 | · | · |
| 2016 | 1,247 | · | · |
| 2015 | 1,992 | · | · |
| 2014 | 3,322 | · | · |
| 2013 | 2,767 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 2,503 | · | · |
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 Ugu, 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.