Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Gauteng
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 6,606 fire detections seen from space; 12,106 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2023, 9,574.
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
- 6,606Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 12,106 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 30 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 22 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 49 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 150 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 38 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 77 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 577 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 1,141 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 2,062 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 1,291 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 515 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 654 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 0.8 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 58 ha burnt (0.003% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 851 ha burnt (0.047% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 101 ha burnt (0.006% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 1,779 ha burnt (0.098% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 9,316 ha burnt (0.51% 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 | 654 | 599 | 688 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 515 | 494 | 525 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 1,291 | 1,225 | 1,440 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 2,062 | 2,000 | 2,846 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 1,141 | 1,099 | 1,380 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 577 | 563 | 536 | 9,316 ha | 0.51% | 99% |
| April 2026 | 77 | 73 | 123 | 1,779 ha | 0.098% | 99% |
| March 2026 | 38 | 38 | 52 | 101 ha | 0.006% | 99% |
| February 2026 | 150 | 129 | 143 | 851 ha | 0.047% | 99% |
| January 2026 | 49 | 45 | 56 | 58 ha | 0.003% | 99% |
| December 2025 | 22 | 21 | 33 | 0.8 ha | 0.000% | 99% |
| November 2025 | 30 | 25 | 43 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 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
- 20239,574 fire detections, most in August 2023; 93,113 ha burnt
- 20149,250 fire detections, most in June 2014
- 20129,018 fire detections, most in May 2012
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2024, 135,563 ha (7.5% of the place); 2021, 108,358 ha (6.0% of the place); 2019, 104,535 ha (5.8% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 6,554 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 6,395 | 71,860 ha | 4.0% |
| 2024 | 8,708 | 135,563 ha | 7.5% |
| 2023 | 9,574 | 93,113 ha | 5.1% |
| 2022 | 7,187 | 82,180 ha | 4.5% |
| 2021 | 8,739 | 108,358 ha | 6.0% |
| 2020 | 7,604 | 89,266 ha | 4.9% |
| 2019 | 8,188 | 104,535 ha | 5.8% |
| 2018 | 8,580 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 8,530 | · | · |
| 2016 | 4,780 | · | · |
| 2015 | 7,669 | · | · |
| 2014 | 9,250 | · | · |
| 2013 | 8,921 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 9,018 | · | · |
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.