Environment · Chart
Cape Town’s firefighters are called to more than 13,000 vegetation fires a year
13,020incidents Vegetation fires · Highest
Vegetation fires are the most common call-out, at 13,020 a year. Fires in formal houses are the rarest, at 1,898.
From our storiesCape Town's Driest July Since 1958: The Rain, the Dams and Two FiresRead the full story →
Method and sources
Each bar is the number of incidents the City of Cape Town Fire and Rescue Service attended in the year to April 2026, by type, as reported in the article.
Vegetation fires 13,020, motor vehicle accidents 4,991, informal residential fires 2,125, pedestrian accidents 2,120, formal residential fires 1,898.
Road and pedestrian incidents are included for scale; they are not fires. The article gives the period explicitly as 1 May 2025 to 29 April 2026, so no approximation is needed.
Sources: City of Cape Town Fire and Rescue Service (https://www.capetown.gov.za/)
Figures as published in our article on Cape Town's driest July since 1958 (chart last checked 14 September 2026): City of Cape Town Fire and Rescue Service incident counts for the year to April 2026. The link is to the publisher, not the exact table.
Chart updated · 14 Sep 2026. The observation dates above describe the data, not today’s conditions.
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