Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Ward 1, Cederberg
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 1,321 fire detections seen from space; 15,729 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2025, 1,396.
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
- 1,321Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 15,729 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 25 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 1,215 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 45 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 1 fire detection |
| March 2026 | 16 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 8 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 2 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 4 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 1 fire detection |
| August 2026 | 0 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 3 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 1 fire detection |
| November 2025 | 41 ha burnt (0.036% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 13,774 ha burnt (11.8% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 1,523 ha burnt (1.3% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 45 ha burnt (0.038% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 346 ha burnt (0.30% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% 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 | 1 | 1 | 0 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 3 | 3 | 1 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 0 | 0 | 1 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 1 | 1 | 0 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 4 | 4 | 5 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 8 | 8 | 2 | 346 ha | 0.30% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 16 | 14 | 23 | 45 ha | 0.038% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 45 | 44 | 39 | 1,523 ha | 1.3% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 1,215 | 1,081 | 1,256 | 13,774 ha | 11.8% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 25 | 18 | 15 | 41 ha | 0.036% | 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
- 20251,396 fire detections, most in December 2025; 14,816 ha burnt
- 2013845 fire detections, most in March 2013
- 2016693 fire detections, most in December 2016
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2025, 14,816 ha (12.7% of the place); 2022, 1,491 ha (1.3% of the place); 2021, 1,440 ha (1.2% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 81 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 1,396 | 14,816 ha | 12.7% |
| 2024 | 33 | 83 ha | 0.071% |
| 2023 | 27 | 551 ha | 0.47% |
| 2022 | 192 | 1,491 ha | 1.3% |
| 2021 | 181 | 1,440 ha | 1.2% |
| 2020 | 135 | 1,351 ha | 1.2% |
| 2019 | 84 | 256 ha | 0.22% |
| 2018 | 145 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 268 | · | · |
| 2016 | 693 | · | · |
| 2015 | 486 | · | · |
| 2014 | 125 | · | · |
| 2013 | 845 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 255 | · | · |
Detections from February 2012 (S-NPP); burnt area from July 2018, so whole years of it from 2019.
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.