How long did the Cederberg fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 December 2025 and 4 January 2026: 14 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 53,532 hectares (535.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cederberg (43,622 ha, 5.4 %); Witzenberg (10,080 ha, 0.9 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 31.8 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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.

ZA · South Africa · 2025-12-22 → 2026-01-04

Cederberg fire, December 2025 Cederberg, Witzenberg

Out · last detection 4 Jan 2026, 23:53 UTC

The fire started on 22 December 2025 in Cederberg, South Africa, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 53,532 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 2th largest in Western Cape since 2016 (of 164 with a page). The largest in South Africa in 2025, of 87.

Burnt area: 53,532ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 14days; 22 Dec 2025 – 4 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 22 Dec; 2025
Heat detections: 2,014; in a single hotspot: 373 MW
Danger at start: 40; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 37.0GW; sum of detected power

Play back 4 Jan 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Dec4 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

222324252627282930311234

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

32°high

58km/h · peak gust

13%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

27% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 9,386 ha in 2016, 1,792 ha in 2017, 1,565 ha in 2020, 1,018 ha in 2021, 804 ha in 2022.

What happened to each town

Cederberg where it started

43,622 ha reached on 22 Dec

5.4 %
Witzenberg

10,080 ha reached on 29 Dec

0.9 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre 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) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Rain	Danger (FWI)
22 Dec	28.9 °C	21 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
23 Dec	25.0 °C	39 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
24 Dec	26.8 °C	21 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
25 Dec	26.9 °C	23 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
26 Dec	26.8 °C	21 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
27 Dec	26.4 °C	28 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
28 Dec	29.4 °C	21 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
29 Dec	31.8 °C	20 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
30 Dec	29.9 °C	13 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
31 Dec	27.6 °C	21 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
1 Jan	27.2 °C	33 %	58 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
2 Jan	26.6 °C	35 %	57 km/h	0.1 mm	High 36
3 Jan	27.0 °C	20 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
4 Jan	28.2 °C	22 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
5 Jan after	27.5 °C	29 %	57 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
6 Jan after	23.7 °C	44 %	57 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
7 Jan after	27.4 °C	19 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
8 Jan after	25.6 °C	19 %	57 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
9 Jan after	28.3 °C	20 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
10 Jan after	31.1 °C	19 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
11 Jan after	31.0 °C	19 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
12 Jan after	29.6 °C	18 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
13 Jan after	30.1 °C	20 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
14 Jan after	26.4 °C	23 %	61 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

↔

Before · 15 Dec 2025

After · 11 Jan 2026

Before After

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 · Copernicus

On 30 December 2025 the air beside the fire reached 91 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 47: 3.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak91 µg/m³

Days over the guideline9 days

PM1092 µg/m³

Optical depth1.01

WHO 15

2021222324252627282930311234567

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 · 2,014Every 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

All fires in South Africa ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Cederberg fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 December 2025 and 4 January 2026: 14 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 53,532 hectares (535.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cederberg (43,622 ha, 5.4 %); Witzenberg (10,080 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 31.8 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What really happened?

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We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 10177 · 112.

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.

Where it burned