Wildfires in South Africa

Situation over the last 30 days

7 fires detected in South Africa over the last 30 days, totalling 519 hectares of cumulative footprint. The latest satellite detection (NASA FIRMS) dates from September 6 at 02:45 AM.

The savannas in South Africa burn every dry season, over huge areas but with fast, low-intensity grass fires, largely lit for farming and grazing. Detections are numerous; destructive forest fires are rare.

Other countries

These figures come from satellite thermal detection and are not an official tally: only the emergency services of the country concerned are authoritative. The detected footprint overstates the area actually burnt, a 375 m pixel counting whole when only an edge burns. A freshly detected fire may not yet carry a place name and will then not appear in this list, though it is already on the map.

Learn more: what a forest fire is and how satellites detect it

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