Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Umzinyathi
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 2,763 fire detections seen from space; 1,234 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2013, 4,858.
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
- 2,763Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 1,234 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 81 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 40 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 59 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 84 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 12 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 38 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 195 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 236 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 611 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 742 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 445 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 220 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 43 ha burnt (0.005% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 8.0 ha burnt (0.001% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 57 ha burnt (0.007% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 153 ha burnt (0.018% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 114 ha burnt (0.013% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 69 ha burnt (0.008% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 790 ha burnt (0.091% 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 | 220 | 183 | 218 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 445 | 416 | 438 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 742 | 704 | 800 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 611 | 586 | 662 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 236 | 233 | 230 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 195 | 186 | 210 | 790 ha | 0.091% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 38 | 36 | 40 | 69 ha | 0.008% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 12 | 11 | 29 | 114 ha | 0.013% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 84 | 70 | 86 | 153 ha | 0.018% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 59 | 48 | 72 | 57 ha | 0.007% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 40 | 35 | 56 | 8.0 ha | 0.001% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 81 | 74 | 139 | 43 ha | 0.005% | 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
- 20134,858 fire detections, most in August 2013
- 20234,008 fire detections, most in August 2023; 36,375 ha burnt
- 20243,536 fire detections, most in July 2024; 48,002 ha burnt
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2024, 48,002 ha (5.6% of the place); 2023, 36,375 ha (4.2% of the place); 2020, 31,809 ha (3.7% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 2,642 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 2,471 | 16,185 ha | 1.9% |
| 2024 | 3,536 | 48,002 ha | 5.6% |
| 2023 | 4,008 | 36,375 ha | 4.2% |
| 2022 | 2,542 | 20,624 ha | 2.4% |
| 2021 | 3,481 | 28,695 ha | 3.3% |
| 2020 | 3,358 | 31,809 ha | 3.7% |
| 2019 | 2,900 | 28,963 ha | 3.4% |
| 2018 | 3,134 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 2,413 | · | · |
| 2016 | 1,478 | · | · |
| 2015 | 1,204 | · | · |
| 2014 | 2,773 | · | · |
| 2013 | 4,858 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 2,542 | · | · |
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 Umzinyathi, 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.