Burned area
satellite only2,157ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 16 Aug 2026 – 17 Aug 2026
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
ZA · South Africa · –
Matatiele fire, 16 August 2026 Matatiele
Out · last detection 17 Aug 2026, 23:39 UTC
The fire started on 16 August 2026 in Matatiele, South Africa, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,157 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
Number 133 in South Africa in 2026, of 156.
GWIS near-real-time perimeter, from the layer that changed in August 2025: this fire is not compared with fires from earlier years, because since then the GWIS layer gives more and larger perimeters.
The power measured by the satellite is low (25.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches 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 only2days
16 Aug 2026 to 17 Aug 2026: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 17 Aug 2026, 23:39 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 only16 Aug 2026
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 16 Aug 2026
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only61
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 25 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 16 Aug 2026 – 17 Aug 2026
+− 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 only306MW
Total radiative power on 16 August 2026; hotspots that day: 49.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 16 Aug 2026
+− 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
model8.5FWI · low
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 3.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 16 Aug 2026, 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
model21.5°C · 11% RH
High of 21.5 °C and minimum humidity of 11% on 17 August 2026; gusts of 26 km/h on 16 August 2026.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 16 Aug 2026 – 17 Aug 2026
- 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 GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
What was saved on 24 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
- 2,157 ha
- Dates
- 16 Aug 2026 – 17 Aug 2026
- Name
- Matatiele
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/matatiele-2026-08-2?v=2026-10-24A 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 matatiele-2026-08-2.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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-08-16 | 49 | 306 | 18.1 | -3.5 | 14 | 12.3 | 25.6 | 0 | 8.5 | bajo | 1 |
| 2026-08-17 | 12 | 66 | 21.5 | -2 | 11 | 11 | 23 | 0 | 13.6 | moderado | 1 |
| 2026-08-18 | 0 | 0 | 23.1 | -0.3 | 16 | 11.7 | 24.1 | 0 | 15.3 | moderado | 0 |
| 2026-08-19 | 0 | 0 | 22.8 | 0.5 | 17 | 19.3 | 43.6 | 0 | 20.4 | moderado | 0 |
| 2026-08-20 | 0 | 0 | 22.1 | 1.9 | 18 | 9.4 | 34.6 | 0 | 16.6 | moderado | 0 |
| 2026-08-21 | 0 | 0 | 22 | 1.1 | 15 | 20.5 | 48.6 | 0 | 23.7 | alto | 0 |
| 2026-08-22 | 0 | 0 | 23.2 | 2 | 14 | 25.3 | 58 | 0.1 | 28.7 | alto | 0 |
| 2026-08-23 | 0 | 0 | 16.5 | 3.4 | 15 | 9.6 | 19.1 | 0.2 | 19.8 | moderado | 0 |
| 2026-08-24 | 0 | 0 | 21.4 | -1 | 7 | 9.3 | 21.6 | 0 | 22.9 | alto | 0 |
| 2026-08-25 | 0 | 0 | 22 | 0 | 9 | 11.3 | 27.7 | 0 | 25.1 | alto | 0 |
| 2026-08-26 | 0 | 0 | 16.1 | 5.9 | 43 | 12.2 | 29.5 | 0 | 16.8 | moderado | 0 |
| 2026-08-27 | 0 | 0 | 21.6 | 3 | 20 | 13.9 | 34.6 | 0 | 20.7 | moderado | 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
- 2,157ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 2days
- 16 Aug 2026 – 17 Aug 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 16 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 61
- in a single hotspot: 25 MW
- Danger at start
- 8
- Low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 186MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
16 Aug17 Aug
17 Aug 2026
How it evolved, day by day
16 Aug
17 Aug
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
22°high
26km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity
It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
72% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 796 ha in 2018, 1,377 ha in 2019, 708 ha in 2020, 765 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,545 ha that had burned before.
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
-
Matatiele where it started2,160 ha reached on 16 Aug0.5 %
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 2025Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20
Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
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)
Started with Very dry air: 37 % of the area in South Africa
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Aug | 18.1 °C | 14 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 17 Aug | 21.5 °C | 11 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 18 Aug after | 23.1 °C | 16 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 19 Aug after | 22.8 °C | 17 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 20 Aug after | 22.1 °C | 18 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 21 Aug after | 22.0 °C | 15 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 22 Aug after | 23.2 °C | 14 % | 58 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 29 |
| 23 Aug after | 16.5 °C | 15 % | 19 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 24 Aug after | 21.4 °C | 7 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 25 Aug after | 22.0 °C | 9 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 26 Aug after | 16.1 °C | 43 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 27 Aug after | 21.6 °C | 20 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 9 Aug 2026
After · 24 Aug 2026
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 18 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 29 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak29 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1030 µg/m³
Optical depth0.15
WHO 15
14 Aug16 Aug18 Aug20 Aug
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 · 61Every 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
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Matatiele fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 August 2026 and 17 August 2026: 2 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 2,157 hectares (21.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Matatiele (2,160 ha, 0.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 21.5 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 26 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 14, class Moderate.
- 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 61 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 2025, 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.