Fire near Limpopo (ZA)

25.17°S, 28.35°E · first detected on 16 October at 15:44

What the satellites measured

This fire was tracked from 16 October at 15:44 to 20 October at 01:58, that is 3 days, through 246 satellite detections. The detected extent reaches 4,493 ha.

Detected extent: 4,493 ha
Cumulative power: 4,477 MW
Peak power, one pixel: 151 MW
VIIRS and MODIS detections: 246
Estimated emissions: 13.1 kt of carbon; Carbon burnt in the 0.1 degree cells (about 10 km) around the fire, from 16 October 2026 to 19 October 2026. An order-of-magnitude estimate from GFAS (ECMWF, Copernicus CAMS): it also counts neighbouring fires in the same cell. Contains modified Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service information (2026).

These four figures cover the polar orbits alone, the ones that measure an area. The pass table below also counts geostationary detections, more frequent but too coarse for geometry, and its power column sums a whole pass where the peak above is that of a single pixel.

“Detected extent” is not “burned area”: it is the union of the ground footprints of the satellite pixels, and a pixel counts in full (375 m for VIIRS, 1 km for MODIS) even when only a forest edge is burning. Compared with press figures it is in practice one and a half to three times the area reported. Detections taken at the edge of the scan swath, too coarse to measure anything at all, are excluded. These figures come from thermal detection and are not an official assessment: only the emergency services and the competent authorities are authoritative.

Replay how the fire spread

The map is framed on this fire's footprint and loads only its detections. The timeline below covers the period in which satellites saw it, from the first to the last detection, with twelve hours before and twenty-four after; the ticks on the bar mark the emergency services' announcements that fall within it. The cursor opens on the most powerful pass, and playback replays the whole fire in about thirty seconds. “1 h” shows what is burning within an hour of the chosen moment : the map then follows the power curve below and empties when it falls. “24 h” stacks twenty-four hours : a fire stays visible between two satellite passes, which come two to four times a day. Both are true, but they say different things.

How the radiative power evolved

One point per satellite pass: the sum of the fire radiative power measured over the fire. This is the curve that says whether the fire eased off or picked up again, which no cumulative figure shows. The window covers 6 days; beyond that, clustering would merge two successive fires in the same place.

Fire dynamics

Loading history…

Satellite passes in detail

Pass	Power summed over the pass	Detections	Sensor
20 October at 12:02	20 MW	1	Met12
20 October at 11:52	32 MW	1	Met12
20 October at 11:48	73 MW	1	Met10
20 October at 11:42	292 MW	4	Met12
20 October at 11:33	968 MW	5	Met10
20 October at 11:33	931 MW	4	Met9
20 October at 11:32	808 MW	7	Met12
20 October at 11:22	264 MW	4	Met12
20 October at 11:18	453 MW	4	Met10
20 October at 11:18	377 MW	3	Met9
20 October at 11:12	222 MW	4	Met12
20 October at 11:03	84 MW	1	Met10
20 October at 11:02	65 MW	2	Met12
20 October at 10:52	155 MW	3	Met12
20 October at 10:48	362 MW	4	Met10
20 October at 10:48	225 MW	2	Met9
20 October at 10:42	184 MW	4	Met12
20 October at 08:18	305 MW	2	Met9
20 October at 08:18	167 MW	2	Met10
20 October at 08:12	328 MW	6	Met12
20 October at 08:03	718 MW	5	Met10
20 October at 08:03	861 MW	4	Met9
20 October at 08:02	426 MW	8	Met12
20 October at 07:52	130 MW	3	Met12
20 October at 07:48	80 MW	1	Met9
20 October at 07:48	134 MW	3	Met10
20 October at 07:42	70 MW	2	Met12
20 October at 07:33	107 MW	1	Met9
20 October at 07:33	264 MW	3	Met10
20 October at 07:32	207 MW	2	Met9
20 October at 07:32	96 MW	2	Met12
20 October at 07:22	67 MW	2	Met12
20 October at 07:18	242 MW	4	Met10
20 October at 07:17	209 MW	4	Met9
20 October at 07:12	171 MW	4	Met12
20 October at 07:03	38 MW	1	Met9
20 October at 07:02	33 MW	2	Met12
20 October at 06:52	14 MW	1	Met12
20 October at 01:58	1 MW	1	N
20 October at 01:22	4 MW	2	N21
20 October at 00:37	3 MW	1	N20
19 October at 20:32	14 MW	1	Terra
19 October at 14:44	1,801 MW	94	N
19 October at 14:08	439 MW	11	N21
19 October at 13:23	343 MW	12	N20
19 October at 03:54	58 MW	2	Aqua
19 October at 02:18	23 MW	8	N
19 October at 01:39	39 MW	10	N21
19 October at 00:57	51 MW	10	N20
19 October at 00:35	76 MW	15	N
18 October at 21:32	401 MW	4	Terra
18 October at 15:01	104 MW	4	N
18 October at 14:25	371 MW	8	N21
18 October at 13:42	71 MW	3	N20
18 October at 13:21	354 MW	25	N
18 October at 01:58	6 MW	3	N21
18 October at 01:16	6 MW	5	N20
18 October at 00:57	6 MW	4	N
18 October at 00:18	7 MW	4	N21
17 October at 20:51	68 MW	4	Terra
17 October at 13:42	16 MW	1	N
17 October at 13:04	13 MW	1	N21
17 October at 01:33	4 MW	4	N20
17 October at 01:14	5 MW	4	N
17 October at 00:37	11 MW	3	N21
16 October at 15:44	185 MW	2	Aqua

8 other fires near Limpopo (ZA)

Separate fires, apart in time or in space, not pieces of this one. A single municipality can have several over one summer, and a forest massif often covers more than a hundred square kilometres.

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