Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Winnie Madikizela-Mandela
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 1,586 fire detections seen from space; 2,654 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2013, 1,999.
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
- 1,586Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 2,654 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 38 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 13 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 50 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 23 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 13 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 25 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 243 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 344 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 611 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 184 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 18 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 24 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 7.8 ha burnt (0.003% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 55 ha burnt (0.023% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 7.9 ha burnt (0.003% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 195 ha burnt (0.081% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 2,388 ha burnt (0.99% 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 | 24 | 24 | 32 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 18 | 18 | 14 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 184 | 180 | 198 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 611 | 604 | 727 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 344 | 341 | 406 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 243 | 235 | 226 | 2,388 ha | 0.99% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 25 | 25 | 37 | 195 ha | 0.081% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 13 | 13 | 12 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 23 | 21 | 20 | 7.9 ha | 0.003% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 50 | 43 | 41 | 55 ha | 0.023% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 13 | 11 | 20 | 7.8 ha | 0.003% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 38 | 35 | 40 | 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
- 20131,999 fire detections, most in August 2013
- 20241,966 fire detections, most in August 2024; 23,413 ha burnt
- 20191,899 fire detections, most in July 2019; 16,124 ha burnt
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2024, 23,413 ha (9.7% of the place); 2020, 19,574 ha (8.1% of the place); 2019, 16,124 ha (6.7% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 1,535 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 985 | 7,920 ha | 3.3% |
| 2024 | 1,966 | 23,413 ha | 9.7% |
| 2023 | 1,422 | 12,541 ha | 5.2% |
| 2022 | 1,564 | 11,035 ha | 4.6% |
| 2021 | 1,559 | 12,705 ha | 5.3% |
| 2020 | 1,898 | 19,574 ha | 8.1% |
| 2019 | 1,899 | 16,124 ha | 6.7% |
| 2018 | 1,258 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 1,199 | · | · |
| 2016 | 792 | · | · |
| 2015 | 1,292 | · | · |
| 2014 | 1,855 | · | · |
| 2013 | 1,999 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 1,417 | · | · |
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 (Bizana)
- Ward 2
- Ward 3
- Ward 4
- Ward 5
- Ward 6
- Ward 7
- Ward 8
- Ward 9
- Ward 10
- Ward 11
- Ward 12
- Ward 13
- Ward 14
- Ward 15
- Ward 16
- Ward 17
- Ward 18
- Ward 19
- Ward 20
- Ward 21
- Ward 22
- Ward 23 (Manlatini, Mngungundlovu)
- Ward 24 (Ebenezer)
- Ward 25
- Ward 26
- Ward 27
- Ward 28
- Ward 29
- Ward 30
- Ward 31
- Ward 32
Places in each ward: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Everything we hold for Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, 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.