Ba-Phalaborwa fire, 25 October 2026 Ba-Phalaborwa
The fire started on 25 October 2026 in Ba-Phalaborwa, South Africa, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,057 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 209th largest in Limpopo since 2016 (of 222 with a page). Number 150 in South Africa in 2026, of 156.
The power measured by the satellite is low (26.9 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 2,057ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 10days
- 25 Oct 2026 – 3 Nov 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 25 Oct
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 51
- in a single hotspot: 27 MW
- Danger at start
- 23
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 35MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
55% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,163 ha in 2022.
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 started2,068 ha reached on 25 Oct0.3 %
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.
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) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Oct | 33.9 °C | 33 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 26 Oct | 36.8 °C | 23 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 27 Oct | 36.8 °C | 29 % | 67 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 50 |
| 28 Oct | 29.6 °C | 36 % | 68 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 29 Oct | 28.5 °C | 33 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 30 Oct | 28.3 °C | 35 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 31 Oct | 31.5 °C | 33 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 1 Nov | 36.0 °C | 27 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 2 Nov | 31.5 °C | 41 % | 32 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 28 |
| 3 Nov | 34.8 °C | 31 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 27 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 45 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 51Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 4,484 haBa-Phalaborwa23 September 2022 · 12 days · 2 km away
- 4,697 haBa-Phalaborwa15 September 2022 · 5 days · 6 km away
- 4,118 haBa-PhalaborwaSeptember 2025 · 6 days · 12 km away
- 3,634 haBa-Phalaborwa1 September 2023 · 4 days · 24 km away
- 5,868 haGreater GiyaniOctober 2026 · 6 days · 34 km away
- 3,689 haBa-Phalaborwa15 September 2023 · 9 days · 36 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 25 October 2026 to 3 November 2026 (10 days). The perimeter dates it from 28 October 2026 to 1 November 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,057 hectares (20.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Ba-Phalaborwa (2,068 ha, 0.3 %).
- Is the Ba-Phalaborwa fire still active?
- No fire detections since 1 Nov 2026, 23:35 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 68 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, class Very high.
- 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.
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 2 November 2026.
- Page published (2,057 ha).
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 28 October 2026 to 1 November 2026. 51 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: ECMWF IFS model, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives.
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.