Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in uMngeni
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 664 fire detections seen from space; 359 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2019, 979.
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
- 664Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 359 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 32 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 13 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 15 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 9 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 21 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 3 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 39 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 95 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 190 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 149 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 66 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 32 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 17 ha burnt (0.011% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 59 ha burnt (0.039% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 78 ha burnt (0.052% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 66 ha burnt (0.044% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 139 ha burnt (0.092% 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 | 32 | 31 | 28 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 66 | 66 | 57 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 149 | 143 | 229 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 190 | 181 | 253 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 95 | 94 | 83 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 39 | 39 | 51 | 139 ha | 0.092% | 99% |
| April 2026 | 3 | 3 | 8 | 66 ha | 0.044% | 99% |
| March 2026 | 21 | 20 | 32 | 78 ha | 0.052% | 99% |
| February 2026 | 9 | 7 | 17 | 59 ha | 0.039% | 99% |
| January 2026 | 15 | 14 | 18 | 17 ha | 0.011% | 99% |
| December 2025 | 13 | 11 | 11 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 99% |
| November 2025 | 32 | 30 | 25 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 99% |
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
- 2019979 fire detections, most in July 2019; 9,879 ha burnt
- 2020942 fire detections, most in July 2020; 10,556 ha burnt
- 2013881 fire detections, most in June 2013
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2021, 10,986 ha (7.3% of the place); 2023, 10,798 ha (7.2% of the place); 2020, 10,556 ha (7.0% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 619 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 606 | 8,742 ha | 5.8% |
| 2024 | 734 | 8,782 ha | 5.8% |
| 2023 | 739 | 10,798 ha | 7.2% |
| 2022 | 781 | 9,028 ha | 6.0% |
| 2021 | 778 | 10,986 ha | 7.3% |
| 2020 | 942 | 10,556 ha | 7.0% |
| 2019 | 979 | 9,879 ha | 6.6% |
| 2018 | 743 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 676 | · | · |
| 2016 | 813 | · | · |
| 2015 | 690 | · | · |
| 2014 | 762 | · | · |
| 2013 | 881 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 756 | · | · |
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 (Howick West, KwaMevana)
- Ward 2 (Howick, Greendale Park)
- Ward 3 (Fort Nottingham, Nottingham Road)
- Ward 4 (Nxamalala)
- Ward 5 (Amber Valley)
- Ward 6 (Hilton, Hilton Gardens)
- Ward 7 (Leonard, Merrivale Heights)
- Ward 8 (Mpophomeni)
- Ward 9 (Midmar, Thurlow)
- Ward 10 (Mpophomeni)
- Ward 11 (Mpophomeni)
- Ward 12 (Lions River, Blackhurst Peninsula)
- Ward 13 (Mpophomeni)
Places in each ward: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Everything we hold for uMngeni, 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.