Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Ward 23, Chief Albert Luthuli
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 240 fire detections seen from space; 233 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2019, 767.
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
- 240Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 233 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 5 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 4 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 2 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 22 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 4 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 0 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 7 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 7 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 63 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 64 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 40 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 22 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 31 ha burnt (0.044% 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 | 57 ha burnt (0.081% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 32 ha burnt (0.046% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 113 ha burnt (0.16% 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 | 22 | 21 | 30 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 40 | 39 | 55 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 64 | 57 | 60 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 63 | 61 | 70 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 7 | 7 | 16 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 7 | 6 | 3 | 113 ha | 0.16% | 99% |
| April 2026 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 99% |
| March 2026 | 4 | 4 | 11 | 32 ha | 0.046% | 99% |
| February 2026 | 22 | 21 | 15 | 57 ha | 0.081% | 99% |
| January 2026 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 99% |
| December 2025 | 4 | 4 | 7 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 99% |
| November 2025 | 5 | 5 | 14 | 31 ha | 0.044% | 99% |
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
- 2019767 fire detections, most in July 2019; 12,034 ha burnt
- 2024645 fire detections, most in August 2024; 12,457 ha burnt
- 2014580 fire detections, most in August 2014
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2024, 12,457 ha (17.8% of the place); 2019, 12,034 ha (17.2% of the place); 2023, 9,129 ha (13.1% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 231 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 385 | 8,153 ha | 11.7% |
| 2024 | 645 | 12,457 ha | 17.8% |
| 2023 | 532 | 9,129 ha | 13.1% |
| 2022 | 356 | 4,934 ha | 7.1% |
| 2021 | 465 | 6,523 ha | 9.3% |
| 2020 | 434 | 7,712 ha | 11.0% |
| 2019 | 767 | 12,034 ha | 17.2% |
| 2018 | 514 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 459 | · | · |
| 2016 | 285 | · | · |
| 2015 | 388 | · | · |
| 2014 | 580 | · | · |
| 2013 | 478 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 446 | · | · |
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.