Hessequa fire, October 2025 Hessequa, Swellendam
The fire started on 21 October 2025 in Hessequa, South Africa, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,268 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 86th largest in Western Cape since 2016 (of 164 with a page). Number 21 in South Africa in 2025, of 87.
- Burnt area
- 4,268ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 21 Oct 2025 – 24 Oct 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 21 Oct
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 87
- in a single hotspot: 142 MW
- Danger at start
- 28
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 2.4GW
- sum of detected power
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 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.1 mm on 26 Oct.
This area had burned before
3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5 ha in 2021, 106 ha in 2022.
What happened to each town
-
Hessequa where it started3,897 ha reached on 21 Oct0.7 %
-
374 ha reached on 23 Oct0.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 Oct | 26.5 °C | 33 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 22 Oct | 36.1 °C | 15 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 23 Oct | 25.7 °C | 42 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 24 Oct | 23.5 °C | 39 % | 52 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 32 |
| 25 Oct after | 17.3 °C | 45 % | 44 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 25 |
| 26 Oct after | 16.6 °C | 49 % | 39 km/h | 4.1 mm | Very low 4 |
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 24 October 2025 the air beside the fire reached 62 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 · 87Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 12,215 haHessequaJanuary 2021 · 13 days · 9 km away
- 7,059 haHessequaFebruary 2022 · 8 days · 11 km away
- 9,043 haHessequaJanuary 2026 · 5 days · 14 km away
- 4,300 haHessequaNovember 2018 · 4 days · 26 km away
- 12,878 haSwellendamFebruary 2017 · 12 days · 28 km away
- 4,076 haHessequa29 October 2018 · 7 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Hessequa fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 October 2025 and 24 October 2025: 4 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 4,268 hectares (42.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Hessequa (3,897 ha, 0.7 %); Swellendam (374 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.1 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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
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
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.