Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in uPhongolo
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 574 fire detections seen from space; 276 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2013, 1,911.
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
- 574Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 276 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 6 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 1 fire detection |
| January 2026 | 1 fire detection |
| February 2026 | 26 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 2 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 5 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 17 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 10 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 71 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 130 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 223 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 82 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 17 ha burnt (0.006% 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 | 206 ha burnt (0.072% 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 | 53 ha burnt (0.019% 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 | 82 | 67 | 82 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 223 | 210 | 297 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 130 | 120 | 156 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 71 | 68 | 87 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 10 | 10 | 21 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 17 | 17 | 13 | 53 ha | 0.019% | 96% |
| April 2026 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 96% |
| March 2026 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 96% |
| February 2026 | 26 | 25 | 10 | 206 ha | 0.072% | 96% |
| January 2026 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 96% |
| December 2025 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 96% |
| November 2025 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 17 ha | 0.006% | 96% |
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
- 20131,911 fire detections, most in August 2013
- 20191,840 fire detections, most in July 2019; 17,800 ha burnt
- 20141,397 fire detections, most in September 2014
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2019, 17,800 ha (6.2% of the place); 2024, 9,328 ha (3.3% of the place); 2023, 7,296 ha (2.5% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 567 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 730 | 4,025 ha | 1.4% |
| 2024 | 992 | 9,328 ha | 3.3% |
| 2023 | 868 | 7,296 ha | 2.5% |
| 2022 | 672 | 4,775 ha | 1.7% |
| 2021 | 881 | 7,045 ha | 2.5% |
| 2020 | 757 | 3,834 ha | 1.3% |
| 2019 | 1,840 | 17,800 ha | 6.2% |
| 2018 | 415 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 564 | · | · |
| 2016 | 115 | · | · |
| 2015 | 490 | · | · |
| 2014 | 1,397 | · | · |
| 2013 | 1,911 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 1,295 | · | · |
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 (Magudu)
- Ward 2
- Ward 3
- Ward 4
- Ward 5 (Bambanandi, Vusumuzi)
- Ward 6
- Ward 7
- Ward 8
- Ward 9
- Ward 10 (Ncotshane)
- Ward 11 (Pongola)
- Ward 12
- Ward 13
- Ward 14 (Golela, Majuba Outpost)
- Ward 15
Places in each ward: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Everything we hold for uPhongolo, 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.