Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Z F Mgcawu
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 847 fire detections seen from space; 251 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2022, 6,083.
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
- 847Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 251 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 35 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 33 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 354 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 38 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 19 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 8 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 16 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 16 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 30 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 88 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 44 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 166 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 110 ha burnt (0.001% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 141 ha burnt (0.001% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% 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 | 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 | 166 | 107 | 165 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 44 | 44 | 66 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 88 | 88 | 87 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 30 | 29 | 46 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 16 | 16 | 31 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 16 | 16 | 19 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 8 | 8 | 5 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 19 | 17 | 30 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 38 | 26 | 23 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 354 | 37 | 105 | 141 ha | 0.001% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 33 | 20 | 86 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 35 | 23 | 142 | 110 ha | 0.001% | 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
- 20226,083 fire detections, most in September 2022; 128,546 ha burnt
- 20123,977 fire detections, most in September 2012
- 20232,608 fire detections, most in September 2023; 64,062 ha burnt
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2022, 128,546 ha (1.2% of the place); 2021, 91,790 ha (0.89% of the place); 2023, 64,062 ha (0.62% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 779 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 722 | 936 ha | 0.009% |
| 2024 | 844 | 4,023 ha | 0.039% |
| 2023 | 2,608 | 64,062 ha | 0.62% |
| 2022 | 6,083 | 128,546 ha | 1.2% |
| 2021 | 2,345 | 91,790 ha | 0.89% |
| 2020 | 481 | 228 ha | 0.002% |
| 2019 | 317 | 435 ha | 0.003% |
| 2018 | 600 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 715 | · | · |
| 2016 | 542 | · | · |
| 2015 | 354 | · | · |
| 2014 | 337 | · | · |
| 2013 | 910 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 3,977 | · | · |
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 Z F Mgcawu, 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.