Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Umzimkhulu
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 1,661 fire detections seen from space; 720 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2019, 2,436.
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
- 1,661Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 720 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 34 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 7 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 45 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 61 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 26 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 23 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 59 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 169 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 668 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 468 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 69 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 32 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 4.8 ha burnt (0.002% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 179 ha burnt (0.074% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 95 ha burnt (0.039% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 7.2 ha burnt (0.003% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 124 ha burnt (0.051% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 310 ha burnt (0.13% 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 | 30 | 37 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 69 | 65 | 70 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 468 | 452 | 491 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 668 | 656 | 774 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 169 | 167 | 196 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 59 | 59 | 57 | 310 ha | 0.13% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 23 | 22 | 27 | 124 ha | 0.051% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 26 | 22 | 29 | 7.2 ha | 0.003% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 61 | 58 | 42 | 95 ha | 0.039% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 45 | 38 | 52 | 179 ha | 0.074% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 7 | 6 | 7 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 34 | 30 | 42 | 4.8 ha | 0.002% | 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
- 20192,436 fire detections, most in July 2019; 34,128 ha burnt
- 20132,349 fire detections, most in July 2013
- 20242,021 fire detections, most in July 2024; 45,021 ha burnt
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2024, 45,021 ha (18.5% of the place); 2019, 34,128 ha (14.0% of the place); 2020, 32,770 ha (13.5% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 1,620 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 998 | 14,941 ha | 6.1% |
| 2024 | 2,021 | 45,021 ha | 18.5% |
| 2023 | 1,868 | 29,504 ha | 12.1% |
| 2022 | 1,671 | 25,640 ha | 10.5% |
| 2021 | 1,824 | 26,080 ha | 10.7% |
| 2020 | 1,768 | 32,770 ha | 13.5% |
| 2019 | 2,436 | 34,128 ha | 14.0% |
| 2018 | 1,303 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 1,776 | · | · |
| 2016 | 910 | · | · |
| 2015 | 1,370 | · | · |
| 2014 | 1,754 | · | · |
| 2013 | 2,349 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 1,835 | · | · |
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
- Ward 2 (Riverside)
- Ward 3
- Ward 4
- Ward 5
- Ward 6
- Ward 7
- Ward 8
- Ward 9
- Ward 10
- Ward 11
- Ward 12 (Rietvlei)
- Ward 13
- Ward 14
- Ward 15 (Longkloof)
- Ward 16 (Umzimkulu)
- Ward 17 (Clydesdale)
- Ward 18
- Ward 19
- Ward 20
- Ward 21
- Ward 22
Places in each ward: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Everything we hold for Umzimkhulu, 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.