Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Eastern Cape
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 18,825 fire detections seen from space; 39,530 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2024, 39,976.
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
- 18,825Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 39,530 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 1,184 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 657 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 2,160 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 383 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 266 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 277 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 1,087 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 1,634 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 4,529 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 4,761 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 1,303 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 584 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 4,658 ha burnt (0.028% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 3,425 ha burnt (0.020% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 14,416 ha burnt (0.085% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 3,821 ha burnt (0.023% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 943 ha burnt (0.006% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 1,744 ha burnt (0.010% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 10,523 ha burnt (0.062% 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 | 584 | 554 | 573 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 1,303 | 1,279 | 1,418 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 4,761 | 4,659 | 5,290 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 4,529 | 4,420 | 5,328 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 1,634 | 1,613 | 1,740 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 1,087 | 1,057 | 1,057 | 10,523 ha | 0.062% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 277 | 271 | 341 | 1,744 ha | 0.010% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 266 | 239 | 299 | 943 ha | 0.006% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 383 | 356 | 398 | 3,821 ha | 0.023% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 2,160 | 1,911 | 1,941 | 14,416 ha | 0.085% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 657 | 569 | 734 | 3,425 ha | 0.020% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 1,184 | 1,063 | 1,115 | 4,658 ha | 0.028% | 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
- 202439,976 fire detections, most in August 2024; 604,504 ha burnt
- 201335,414 fire detections, most in August 2013
- 202335,137 fire detections, most in August 2023; 449,145 ha burnt
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2024, 604,504 ha (3.6% of the place); 2023, 449,145 ha (2.7% of the place); 2021, 420,710 ha (2.5% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 16,984 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 17,951 | 218,950 ha | 1.3% |
| 2024 | 39,976 | 604,504 ha | 3.6% |
| 2023 | 35,137 | 449,145 ha | 2.7% |
| 2022 | 17,231 | 199,121 ha | 1.2% |
| 2021 | 27,777 | 420,710 ha | 2.5% |
| 2020 | 18,111 | 221,739 ha | 1.3% |
| 2019 | 19,188 | 226,749 ha | 1.3% |
| 2018 | 18,630 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 21,611 | · | · |
| 2016 | 19,173 | · | · |
| 2015 | 17,083 | · | · |
| 2014 | 29,291 | · | · |
| 2013 | 35,414 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 24,047 | · | · |
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.
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.