Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Umzimvubu
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 756 fire detections seen from space; 63 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2013, 1,381.
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
- 756Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 63 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 3 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 4 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 6 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 4 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 3 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 0 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 12 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 30 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 283 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 348 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 48 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 15 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 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 11 ha burnt (0.004% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 52 ha burnt (0.020% 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 | 15 | 13 | 14 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 48 | 48 | 72 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 348 | 344 | 370 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 283 | 276 | 341 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 30 | 30 | 25 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 12 | 12 | 10 | 52 ha | 0.020% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 11 ha | 0.004% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 6 | 5 | 8 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 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
- 20131,381 fire detections, most in August 2013
- 20231,365 fire detections, most in August 2023; 17,178 ha burnt
- 20241,206 fire detections, most in August 2024; 25,375 ha burnt
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2024, 25,375 ha (9.8% of the place); 2023, 17,178 ha (6.7% of the place); 2021, 12,655 ha (4.9% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 749 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 306 | 4,655 ha | 1.8% |
| 2024 | 1,206 | 25,375 ha | 9.8% |
| 2023 | 1,365 | 17,178 ha | 6.7% |
| 2022 | 593 | 6,116 ha | 2.4% |
| 2021 | 1,030 | 12,655 ha | 4.9% |
| 2020 | 250 | 2,138 ha | 0.83% |
| 2019 | 790 | 10,115 ha | 3.9% |
| 2018 | 255 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 473 | · | · |
| 2016 | 103 | · | · |
| 2015 | 388 | · | · |
| 2014 | 1,094 | · | · |
| 2013 | 1,381 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 675 | · | · |
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 (Ben Mbizweni)
- Ward 2
- Ward 3
- Ward 4
- Ward 5
- Ward 6 (Drayini, Golela)
- Ward 7 (eMaXesibeni (Mount Ayliff))
- Ward 8
- Ward 9
- Ward 10 (Dinana, Gqweza)
- Ward 11
- Ward 12
- Ward 13 (Gubhuzi)
- Ward 14
- Ward 15
- Ward 16 (KwaBhaca (Mount Frere))
- Ward 17 (KwaBhaca (Mount Frere))
- Ward 18 (KwaBhaca (Mount Frere))
- Ward 19
- Ward 20
- Ward 21
- Ward 22
- Ward 23
- Ward 24
- Ward 25
- Ward 26
- Ward 27
- Ward 28 (eMaXesibeni (Mount Ayliff))
Places in each ward: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Everything we hold for Umzimvubu, 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.