Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Western Cape
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 15,735 fire detections seen from space; 172,173 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2017, 20,721.
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
- 15,735Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 172,173 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 2,669 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 3,806 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 6,134 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 762 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 804 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 656 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 114 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 99 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 55 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 170 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 264 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 202 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 21,025 ha burnt (0.16% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 38,368 ha burnt (0.30% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 77,862 ha burnt (0.60% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 6,609 ha burnt (0.051% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 21,536 ha burnt (0.17% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 6,326 ha burnt (0.049% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 447 ha burnt (0.003% 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 | 202 | 175 | 259 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 264 | 255 | 233 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 170 | 169 | 204 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 55 | 54 | 89 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 99 | 99 | 99 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 114 | 113 | 126 | 447 ha | 0.003% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 656 | 621 | 695 | 6,326 ha | 0.049% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 804 | 675 | 871 | 21,536 ha | 0.17% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 762 | 705 | 694 | 6,609 ha | 0.051% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 6,134 | 5,587 | 6,662 | 77,862 ha | 0.60% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 3,806 | 3,345 | 3,846 | 38,368 ha | 0.30% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 2,669 | 2,419 | 2,615 | 21,025 ha | 0.16% | 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
- 201720,721 fire detections, most in February 2017
- 201816,340 fire detections, most in November 2018
- 201616,168 fire detections, most in December 2016
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2025, 156,077 ha (1.2% of the place); 2024, 105,184 ha (0.81% of the place); 2019, 68,371 ha (0.53% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 9,260 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 14,032 | 156,077 ha | 1.2% |
| 2024 | 10,461 | 105,184 ha | 0.81% |
| 2023 | 4,196 | 23,462 ha | 0.18% |
| 2022 | 7,396 | 63,970 ha | 0.49% |
| 2021 | 6,088 | 50,562 ha | 0.39% |
| 2020 | 4,679 | 34,184 ha | 0.26% |
| 2019 | 7,481 | 68,371 ha | 0.53% |
| 2018 | 16,340 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 20,721 | · | · |
| 2016 | 16,168 | · | · |
| 2015 | 13,507 | · | · |
| 2014 | 6,501 | · | · |
| 2013 | 8,570 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 6,023 | · | · |
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.