Burned area
satellite only4,484ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 23 Sept 2022 – 4 Oct 2022
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
ZA · South Africa · –
Ba-Phalaborwa fire, 23 September 2022 Ba-Phalaborwa
Out · last detection 3 Oct 2022, 10:45 UTC
The fire started on 23 September 2022 in Ba-Phalaborwa, South Africa, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,484 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 41th largest in Limpopo since 2016 (of 161 with a page). Number 38 in South Africa in 2022, of 143.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-27matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only12days
23 Sept 2022 to 4 Oct 2022: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 3 Oct 2022, 10:45 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only23 Sept 2022
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 23 Sept 2022
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only146
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 38 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 23 Sept 2022 – 4 Oct 2022
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only742MW
Total radiative power on 27 September 2022; hotspots that day: 69.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 27 Sept 2022
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model11.4FWI · moderate
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 0.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 23 Sept 2022, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model37.9°C · 21% RH
High of 37.9 °C and minimum humidity of 21% on 3 October 2022; gusts of 52 km/h on 4 October 2022.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 23 Sept 2022 – 4 Oct 2022
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logLast day with fire: 27 September 2022 → 4 October 2022.
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
What was saved on 27 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 4,484 ha
- Dates
- 23 Sept 2022 – 4 Oct 2022
- Name
- Ba-Phalaborwa
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/ba-phalaborwa-2022-09-3?v=2026-10-27A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire ba-phalaborwa-2022-09-3.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-09-23 | 1 | 1 | 32.7 | 17.4 | 37 | 11.9 | 24.1 | 0 | 11.4 | moderado | 1 |
| 2022-09-24 | 0 | 0 | 30.4 | 19.4 | 42 | 19.3 | 39.6 | 0 | 19.7 | moderado | 1 |
| 2022-09-25 | 53 | 470 | 35.7 | 18.1 | 16 | 15.2 | 35.6 | 0 | 32.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2022-09-26 | 22 | 170 | 36.8 | 15.6 | 15 | 10.1 | 27 | 0 | 31.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2022-09-27 | 69 | 742 | 34.9 | 20 | 28 | 22.7 | 42.8 | 0 | 39.4 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-09-28 | 0 | 0 | 31.3 | 20.5 | 30 | 21.5 | 40.7 | 0 | 35.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2022-09-29 | 0 | 0 | 29.2 | 19.2 | 32 | 21.4 | 36.4 | 0.4 | 33.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2022-09-30 | 0 | 0 | 32.9 | 15.2 | 25 | 12.2 | 25.2 | 0 | 27.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2022-10-01 | 0 | 0 | 34.9 | 18 | 20 | 12.1 | 27 | 0 | 31.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2022-10-02 | 0 | 0 | 33.6 | 19.9 | 29 | 21 | 39.6 | 0 | 39.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-10-03 | 1 | 4 | 37.9 | 20.7 | 21 | 14.2 | 30.2 | 0 | 36 | alto | 1 |
| 2022-10-04 | 0 | 0 | 37.2 | 21.6 | 25 | 30.5 | 51.8 | 0 | 53.8 | extremo | 1 |
| 2022-10-05 | 0 | 0 | 31.6 | 19.3 | 35 | 20.8 | 36.4 | 0.4 | 36.4 | alto | 0 |
| 2022-10-06 | 0 | 0 | 38.6 | 17.1 | 16 | 16.5 | 35.6 | 0 | 43.6 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2022-10-07 | 0 | 0 | 37.8 | 21.4 | 21 | 32.7 | 57.6 | 0 | 64.2 | extremo | 0 |
| 2022-10-08 | 0 | 0 | 31 | 19.2 | 34 | 28.1 | 50.4 | 0 | 45.6 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2022-10-09 | 0 | 0 | 40.1 | 19.1 | 12 | 12.9 | 28.8 | 0 | 45.5 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2022-10-10 | 0 | 0 | 31 | 21.6 | 41 | 29 | 55.8 | 0 | 43.1 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2022-10-11 | 0 | 0 | 32.2 | 21.1 | 38 | 13.3 | 25.6 | 0.2 | 29.8 | alto | 0 |
| 2022-10-12 | 0 | 0 | 36.5 | 20.4 | 24 | 12 | 27 | 0 | 34.6 | alto | 0 |
| 2022-10-13 | 0 | 0 | 36.5 | 21.5 | 25 | 12.7 | 25.9 | 0 | 35.6 | alto | 0 |
| 2022-10-14 | 0 | 0 | 37.9 | 20.8 | 24 | 12.4 | 23.8 | 0 | 36.7 | alto | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 4,484ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 12days
- 23 Sept 2022 – 4 Oct 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 23 Sept
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 146
- in a single hotspot: 38 MW
- Danger at start
- 11
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 277MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
23 Sept4 Oct
3 Oct 2022
How it evolved, day by day
23 Sept
25 Sept
26 Sept
27 Sept
3 Oct
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
38°high
52km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity
It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Ba-Phalaborwa where it started4,509 ha reached on 23 Sept0.6 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2020Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20
Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
The weather day by day
ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 Sept | 32.7 °C | 37 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 11 |
| 24 Sept | 30.4 °C | 42 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 25 Sept | 35.7 °C | 16 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 26 Sept | 36.8 °C | 15 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 27 Sept | 34.9 °C | 28 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 28 Sept | 31.3 °C | 30 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 29 Sept | 29.2 °C | 32 % | 36 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 34 |
| 30 Sept | 32.9 °C | 25 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 1 Oct | 34.9 °C | 20 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 2 Oct | 33.6 °C | 29 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 3 Oct | 37.9 °C | 21 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 4 Oct | 37.2 °C | 25 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 5 Oct after | 31.6 °C | 35 % | 36 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 36 |
| 6 Oct after | 38.6 °C | 16 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 7 Oct after | 37.8 °C | 21 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 8 Oct after | 31.0 °C | 34 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 9 Oct after | 40.1 °C | 12 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 10 Oct after | 31.0 °C | 41 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 11 Oct after | 32.2 °C | 38 % | 26 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 30 |
| 12 Oct after | 36.5 °C | 24 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 13 Oct after | 36.5 °C | 25 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 14 Oct after | 37.9 °C | 24 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 11.4, a minimum humidity of 37% and rain the day before. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 30.
FWI at the start
11.4
Minimum humidity
37 %
Days without rain
0
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Ba-Phalaborwa fire, 23 September 2022
4,484 ha
12 days
FWI 11.4
Min. humidity 37 %
Thaba Chweu fire, August 2023
2,430 ha
4 days
FWI 8.5
Min. humidity 38 %
153 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Nkomazi fire, October 2024
4,655 ha
4 days
FWI 8.9
Min. humidity 40 %
167 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.2 mm on 26 Oct.
Thaba Chweu fire, December 2024
2,237 ha
5 days
FWI 7.3
Min. humidity 34 %
100 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.3 mm on 7 Dec.
Collins Chabane fire, July 2023
2,191 ha
1 day
FWI 14.8
Min. humidity 41 %
95 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.6 mm on 20 Jul.
Bushbuckridge fire, November 2017
3,430 ha
5 days
FWI 3.9
Min. humidity 39 %
101 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 13.6 mm on 25 Nov.
What happened to them
- 5 days
- median duration
- 2,490 ha
- median area
- 100 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- 1.7 mm
- rain at the end (median; 22 of 30 had it)
It was 1.8 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 12 days, against 5 days.
Only 7 of its 30 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 8 of 30, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.7 mm.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
—first rain
—no rain in ten days
52km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 4 Oct, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 22 of 30, with a median of 1.7 mm.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 16 Sept 2022
After · 11 Oct 2022
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 26 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 32 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak32 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1046 µg/m³
Optical depth1.09
WHO 15
21 Sept23 Sept25 Sept27 Sept29 Sept
Good
Fair
Moderate
Poor
Very poor
Extremely poor
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 146Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV
Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 4,697 haBa-Phalaborwa15 September 2022 · 5 days · 4 km away
- 4,118 haBa-PhalaborwaSeptember 2025 · 6 days · 10 km away
- 3,634 haBa-Phalaborwa1 September 2023 · 4 days · 24 km away
- 3,144 haBa-Phalaborwa15 September 2023 · 2 days · 35 km away
- 5,868 haGreater GiyaniOctober 2026 · 6 days · 36 km away
- 3,689 haBa-Phalaborwa15 September 2023 · 9 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ba-Phalaborwa fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 September 2022 to 4 October 2022 (12 days). The perimeter dates it from 23 September 2022 to 27 September 2022.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,484 hectares (44.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Ba-Phalaborwa (4,509 ha, 0.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.9 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, class Extreme.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of South Africa (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 30. Their median duration was 5 days and their median area 2,490 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 7 of its 30 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 8 of 30, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.7 mm.
Where to verify it
A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.
Emergency number: 10177 · 112 · Emergency number and official warnings
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 27 September 2022 → 4 October 2022.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
Does something look wrong on this page?
This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.
Report an error
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 23 September 2022 to 27 September 2022. 146 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
Where this data comes from
The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM3 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.