Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Northern Cape
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 3,155 fire detections seen from space; 6,543 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2022, 14,149.
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
- 3,155Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 6,543 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 231 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 239 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 566 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 88 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 44 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 27 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 78 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 248 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 418 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 607 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 112 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 497 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 848 ha burnt (0.002% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 4,187 ha burnt (0.011% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 384 ha burnt (0.001% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 327 ha burnt (0.001% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 47 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 750 ha burnt (0.002% 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 | 497 | 312 | 258 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 112 | 105 | 123 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 607 | 551 | 591 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 418 | 381 | 539 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 248 | 238 | 275 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 78 | 75 | 80 | 750 ha | 0.002% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 27 | 26 | 21 | 47 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 44 | 39 | 63 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 88 | 61 | 64 | 327 ha | 0.001% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 566 | 136 | 279 | 384 ha | 0.001% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 239 | 143 | 275 | 4,187 ha | 0.011% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 231 | 149 | 366 | 848 ha | 0.002% | 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
- 202214,149 fire detections, most in September 2022; 250,025 ha burnt
- 202312,770 fire detections, most in October 2023; 274,577 ha burnt
- 201210,470 fire detections, most in November 2012
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2021, 347,075 ha (0.93% of the place); 2023, 274,577 ha (0.74% of the place); 2022, 250,025 ha (0.67% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 2,685 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 3,111 | 28,452 ha | 0.076% |
| 2024 | 3,141 | 36,980 ha | 0.10% |
| 2023 | 12,770 | 274,577 ha | 0.74% |
| 2022 | 14,149 | 250,025 ha | 0.67% |
| 2021 | 10,183 | 347,075 ha | 0.93% |
| 2020 | 3,084 | 48,608 ha | 0.13% |
| 2019 | 2,013 | 20,424 ha | 0.054% |
| 2018 | 3,573 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 3,501 | · | · |
| 2016 | 2,870 | · | · |
| 2015 | 1,937 | · | · |
| 2014 | 1,788 | · | · |
| 2013 | 2,783 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 10,470 | · | · |
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.