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The map shows the places where NASA satellites registered unusual heat during the last 24 hours; such signals can come from vegetation fires, from planned or agricultural burns, from industrial heat or from artefacts in the data, so none of them is a confirmed wildfire.
What am I looking at?
Each circle on the map is a spot where a NASA satellite picked up unusual heat during the last 24 hours.
The colour of a circle shows how clear its heat signal was to the satellite, with red the clearest, and the brighter, pulsing circles are those spotted most recently.
A circle may mark a wildfire, but it may equally be a controlled burn, a source of industrial heat or a false reading, so each circle is a reason to check further rather than an alert.
These signals are not happening right now.
The most recent satellite observation was 9 hrs ago, so the signals on the map and in the table below were detected some time ago and may no longer be active; conditions on the ground can change rapidly.
Data feed checkedLatest observationChecked every two hours
3
Heat-signal groups
clusters of nearby detections
0
High signal class
clearest heat signals
2
Nominal signal class
typical heat signals
1
Low signal class
weak or uncertain signals
56.0 MW
Strongest heat signal
peak radiated heat (FRP)
2
Industrial heat
recurring sources such as refinery flares, not counted above
Satellite heat-signal map
High signal class Nominal signal class Low signal class Grey = recurring industrial heat (refinery flares, furnaces), not counted as fire signalsBigger circle = higher FRP, not a larger fire area.
Active: last 6 hours (0) Recent: 6 to 12 hours (3) Fading: 12 to 24 hours (0)Fainter circle = older signal, same signal class.
The map can be dragged to pan and zoomed with the plus and minus buttons, each circle can be selected for its details and the class buttons filter the signals; the brighter, pulsing circles are the most recent.
Signal evidence
Each row is an unverified satellite heat signal and not a confirmed wildfire; nearby pixels are grouped only while the whole group stays within about one kilometre, and the number of separate passes shows whether the heat was observed again later.
What do these terms mean?
Rows are ordered by strength of evidence, strongest first: a repeat signal was seen again on a later satellite pass, whereas a single-pass signal may be a one-off blip, and in neither case can the cause be identified from satellite data alone.
Approximate location
Evidence
Latest observation
Heat readings
Inspect
18 km from Wellington-33.7321, 19.1741
Repeat signal
Nominal
4 independent passes
· 10 pixel observations
More detail
Observed over 13 hr 5 minSuomi NPP, NOAA-20, NOAA-21First observation: 2 Nov 2026, 01:37 SAST
0.86 → 4.12 MW ·
Latest reading higher than first pass
Cause unknown; satellite data cannot identify the heat source.
Observed over 12 hr 3 minSuomi NPP, NOAA-20, NOAA-21First observation: 2 Nov 2026, 01:37 SAST
0.86 → 6.32 MW ·
Latest reading higher than first pass
Cause unknown; satellite data cannot identify the heat source.
refinery flares and furnaces, shown in grey on the map and excluded from the counts
Each of these sites shows a satellite heat signal at the same spot on several different days, a pattern that points to industrial heat such as a refinery flare or furnace rather than a wildfire, so the sites are excluded from the counts above and shown in grey on the map; a reading well above a site's usual level is, however, shown as a normal detection.
Last satellite heat 1 Oct 2026
First observation: 23 Sep 2026Strongest reading: 133.5 MW
Cause
Suspected lightning strike
Last official status
Not contained,
as of 27 Sep 2026, 10:00 SAST, according to Greater Overberg Fire Protection Association (goFPA)
No official update since 27 Sep 2026, but no satellite heat in the last 32 days.
We archive every satellite detection daily so that past activity can be reviewed; the counts are of deduplicated heat-signal groups rather than confirmed wildfires, and the recurring industrial heat sources are listed separately below.
Since 6 Aug 2026 we have tracked detections on 89 days, recording 664 in all, 41 of them in the high signal class.
89
Days tracked
664
Detections
heat-signal groups
33%
Industrial heat
222 of 664, not fires
41
High class
strongest signals
Detections per day
The counts cover the whole Western Cape, and most of the detections are small farm and veld burns far from the city.
Within 60 km of Cape TownRest of the Western CapeIndustrial heat
Tapping a day shows its totals, and tapping a dot shows the details of that fire.
Daily detections: possible fires and industrial heat
The archive behind this chart is available on request.
Request the data
Recurring industrial heat sources:
each of these locations shows a heat signal at the same spot on several different days, a pattern that points to an industrial source such as a refinery flare or furnace rather than a wildfire; they are kept in the archive but excluded from the notable locations above, and they are shown in grey on the live map.
Near Piketberg · seen on 69 days · -32.939, 18.759
8 km from Vredenburg · seen on 65 days · -32.962, 18.046
Near Cape Town International Airport · seen on 30 days · -33.971, 18.579
7 km from Milnerton · seen on 29 days · -33.841, 18.530
18 km from Stellenbosch · seen on 13 days · -34.078, 18.776
43 km from Piketberg · seen on 7 days · -32.578, 19.015
11 km from Saldanha · seen on 5 days · -33.006, 18.057
8 km from Stellenbosch · seen on 4 days · -33.874, 18.803
The full dataset
We provide every archived detection as an Excel workbook, with one row per detection per day giving the coordinates, the nearest place, the confidence class, the fire power, the satellites and the industrial-heat flag.
664 rows across 89 days · 6 Aug 2026 – 2 Nov 2026
Rebuilt every two hours from the live feed; one archive row set per day
Excel workbook (.xlsx) with an About sheet stating source and download time; all times in UTC; coordinates in WGS84
Source: NASA FIRMS (VIIRS 375 m); reuse requires attribution to NASA FIRMS and capetowndata.com.
Column dictionary
Column
Description
date
Acquisition date of the detection (UTC)
latitude, longitude
Cluster centre in decimal degrees (WGS84)
nearest_place, nearest_place_km
Nearest reference town and distance in kilometres
confidence_class
VIIRS confidence class: high, nominal or low
frp_mw
Peak fire radiative power in megawatts for the day
observation_count
Number of 375 m satellite pixels in the cluster
satellites
Contributing satellites, semicolon-separated
day_night
D for a daytime overpass, N for night-time
first_observed_utc, latest_observed_utc
Observation window timestamps (ISO 8601, UTC)
industrial_source
true for recurring industrial heat such as refinery flares; these are not wildfire candidates
Satellite data alone cannot answer that question, so a signal remains marked as satellite only and unverified until a trusted incident source confirms what is happening on the ground.
What does the signal class mean?
The classes are assigned by the VIIRS detection algorithm and do not express the probability that a wildfire exists:
High: a saturated fire pixel and very strong thermal signal
Nominal: a strong temperature anomaly without the main daytime sun-glint flag
Low: a weaker or potentially contaminated signal
What do the circle sizes mean?
The size of a circle reflects its fire radiative power (FRP), measured in megawatts, which describes the heat radiated at the time of observation.
FRP does not show the burned area, the perimeter, the direction of spread or the level of danger.
Why do some circles look fainter?
The brightness of a circle shows how recently its signal was spotted and says nothing about how serious it is:
Active: spotted under 6 hours ago, shown full brightness with a pulsing ring
Recent: spotted 6 to 12 hours ago
Fading: spotted 12 to 24 hours ago, likely out of date
What are passes and pixel observations?
A pass is one satellite flight over the area; each satellite only comes past a few times a day. During a pass the sensor scans the ground in pixels of roughly 375 metres, and a pixel observation is one pixel that registered heat.
The more separate passes that saw heat at the same spot, the more likely something was genuinely burning there for hours rather than a one-off blip.
Why are some circles grey?
A few places in the Western Cape, such as the Astron Energy refinery in Milnerton and sites near the airport, Piketberg and Vredenburg, give off enough heat to be detected by satellite night after night, and that repeating pattern points to industrial heat from a flare or furnace rather than to a wildfire.
These grey markers are left out of the signal counts so that the numbers reflect possible fires only, although a site that reads far above its usual level is shown as a normal signal.
How fresh is this data?
We check the NASA FIRMS Suomi NPP, NOAA-20 and NOAA-21 VIIRS feeds every two hours and show the last 24 hours. Nearby observations form one heat-signal group only while every pair remains within about one kilometre.
Satellites observe only during overpasses, and cloud, heavy smoke, tree canopy and small or cool fires can all prevent detection; a displayed point may also be some other thermal anomaly.
The matching SABC News articles provide context but do not form a complete incident feed, so confirmed local conditions should be taken from official municipal and emergency-service updates.
No matching recent SABC News stories were found.
Satellite data from NASA FIRMS. News reports from SABC News. This page is not an official emergency service and should not be used to decide whether an area is safe.
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