Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Umkhanyakude
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 2,854 fire detections seen from space; 2,840 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2019, 7,577.
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
- 2,854Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 2,840 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 84 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 24 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 10 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 169 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 34 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 45 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 147 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 105 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 526 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 569 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 747 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 394 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 9.4 ha burnt (0.001% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 74 ha burnt (0.005% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 735 ha burnt (0.053% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 272 ha burnt (0.020% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 1,124 ha burnt (0.081% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 626 ha burnt (0.045% 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 | 394 | 340 | 392 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 747 | 676 | 813 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 569 | 534 | 529 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 526 | 507 | 576 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 105 | 99 | 117 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 147 | 139 | 152 | 626 ha | 0.045% | 89% |
| April 2026 | 45 | 45 | 71 | 1,124 ha | 0.081% | 89% |
| March 2026 | 34 | 29 | 27 | 272 ha | 0.020% | 89% |
| February 2026 | 169 | 154 | 148 | 735 ha | 0.053% | 89% |
| January 2026 | 10 | 10 | 14 | 74 ha | 0.005% | 89% |
| December 2025 | 24 | 22 | 26 | 9.4 ha | 0.001% | 89% |
| November 2025 | 84 | 80 | 59 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 89% |
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
- 20197,577 fire detections, most in July 2019; 79,365 ha burnt
- 20136,986 fire detections, most in August 2013
- 20146,910 fire detections, most in July 2014
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2019, 79,365 ha (5.7% of the place); 2024, 48,110 ha (3.5% of the place); 2023, 34,614 ha (2.5% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 2,746 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 2,522 | 16,000 ha | 1.2% |
| 2024 | 3,112 | 48,110 ha | 3.5% |
| 2023 | 3,595 | 34,614 ha | 2.5% |
| 2022 | 1,977 | 19,669 ha | 1.4% |
| 2021 | 3,065 | 30,626 ha | 2.2% |
| 2020 | 2,192 | 10,878 ha | 0.78% |
| 2019 | 7,577 | 79,365 ha | 5.7% |
| 2018 | 1,964 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 2,858 | · | · |
| 2016 | 1,313 | · | · |
| 2015 | 4,049 | · | · |
| 2014 | 6,910 | · | · |
| 2013 | 6,986 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 5,727 | · | · |
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 Umkhanyakude, 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.