Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in uMshwathi
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 727 fire detections seen from space; 306 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2014, 1,031.
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
- 727Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 306 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 39 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 20 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 20 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 21 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 37 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 16 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 118 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 107 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 146 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 94 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 70 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 39 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 5.6 ha burnt (0.003% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 22 ha burnt (0.012% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 14 ha burnt (0.007% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 32 ha burnt (0.017% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 232 ha burnt (0.12% 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 | 39 | 39 | 34 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 70 | 65 | 65 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 94 | 88 | 128 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 146 | 140 | 208 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 107 | 106 | 85 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 118 | 112 | 129 | 232 ha | 0.12% | 99% |
| April 2026 | 16 | 15 | 26 | 32 ha | 0.017% | 99% |
| March 2026 | 37 | 36 | 44 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 99% |
| February 2026 | 21 | 18 | 37 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 99% |
| January 2026 | 20 | 18 | 21 | 14 ha | 0.007% | 99% |
| December 2025 | 20 | 17 | 30 | 22 ha | 0.012% | 99% |
| November 2025 | 39 | 36 | 37 | 5.6 ha | 0.003% | 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
- 20141,031 fire detections, most in June 2014
- 20201,006 fire detections, most in July 2020; 3,501 ha burnt
- 2024983 fire detections, most in July 2024; 5,768 ha burnt
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2024, 5,768 ha (3.1% of the place); 2019, 4,336 ha (2.3% of the place); 2020, 3,501 ha (1.9% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 668 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 655 | 2,356 ha | 1.3% |
| 2024 | 983 | 5,768 ha | 3.1% |
| 2023 | 851 | 3,275 ha | 1.8% |
| 2022 | 632 | 1,785 ha | 0.95% |
| 2021 | 885 | 3,094 ha | 1.7% |
| 2020 | 1,006 | 3,501 ha | 1.9% |
| 2019 | 949 | 4,336 ha | 2.3% |
| 2018 | 793 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 696 | · | · |
| 2016 | 845 | · | · |
| 2015 | 663 | · | · |
| 2014 | 1,031 | · | · |
| 2013 | 935 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 913 | · | · |
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 (Claridge, Cramond)
- Ward 2 (New Hanover, York)
- Ward 3
- Ward 4
- Ward 5
- Ward 6
- Ward 7 (Cool Air, Wartburg)
- Ward 8
- Ward 9 (Trust Feed, Schroeders)
- Ward 10
- Ward 11 (Broadmoor, Bruyns Hill)
- Ward 12
- Ward 13
- Ward 14 (Dalton, Harburg)
Places in each ward: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Everything we hold for uMshwathi, 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.