How long did the Overstrand fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 7 January 2026 to 20 January 2026 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 8 January 2026 to 20 January 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 14,112 hectares (141.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Overstrand (11,974 ha, 7.1 %); Cape Agulhas (1,601 ha, 0.5 %); Theewaterskloof (566 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 27.6 °C, humidity dropped to 44 % and gusts hit 71 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, class 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 · 2026-01-07 → 2026-01-20

Overstrand fire, 7 January 2026 Overstrand, Cape Agulhas, Theewaterskloof

Out · last detection 20 Jan 2026, 12:35 UTC

The fire started on 7 January 2026 in Overstrand, South Africa, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,112 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 20th largest in Western Cape since 2016 (of 164 with a page). Number 3 in South Africa in 2026, of 154.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Overstrand · 2024 Overstrand · 2022 Theewaterskloof · 2025 Theewaterskloof · 2019

Burnt area: 14,112ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 14days; 7 Jan 2026 – 20 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit: 3; municipalities
Started on: 7 Jan; 2026
Heat detections: 608; in a single hotspot: 370 MW
Danger at start: 22; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 1.5GW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Jan20 Jan

Play back 20 Jan 2026

How it evolved, day by day

7 Jan 8 Jan 9 Jan 11 Jan 13 Jan 17 Jan 20 Jan

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

The weather it burned in

28°high

71km/h · peak gust

44%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

16% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 434 ha in 2016, 375 ha in 2022, 477 ha in 2023, 661 ha in 2024, 993 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,268 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 8.9% of the area of London (141 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Overstrand where it started

11,974 ha reached on 7 Jan

7.1 %
Cape Agulhas

1,601 ha reached on 9 Jan

0.5 %
Theewaterskloof

566 ha reached on 9 Jan

0.2 %

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 2025

Built-up area18 ha

Residents≈ 3,500

Inside the perimeter there were about 18 hectares of built-up land and about 3,500 residents (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)

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Rain	Danger (FWI)
7 Jan	23.5 °C	44 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
8 Jan	24.9 °C	45 %	71 km/h	0.3 mm	High 31
9 Jan	23.8 °C	49 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
10 Jan	26.6 °C	46 %	57 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
11 Jan	27.6 °C	57 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
12 Jan	24.8 °C	63 %	37 km/h	0.9 mm	Moderate 13
13 Jan	25.3 °C	54 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
14 Jan	25.7 °C	47 %	56 km/h	1.3 mm	Moderate 20
15 Jan	18.1 °C	55 %	45 km/h	1.0 mm	Moderate 13
16 Jan	19.4 °C	56 %	32 km/h	1.0 mm	Low 10
17 Jan	22.2 °C	48 %	59 km/h	0.7 mm	High 22
18 Jan	20.8 °C	48 %	35 km/h	0.2 mm	Moderate 18
19 Jan	23.2 °C	48 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
20 Jan	25.0 °C	47 %	58 km/h	0.2 mm	High 30
21 Jan after	24.7 °C	54 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
22 Jan after	22.1 °C	61 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
23 Jan after	22.4 °C	47 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
24 Jan after	25.2 °C	43 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
25 Jan after	26.0 °C	52 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
26 Jan after	24.2 °C	58 %	45 km/h	0.1 mm	High 25
27 Jan after	23.7 °C	54 %	40 km/h	0.7 mm	Moderate 20
28 Jan after	23.0 °C	52 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
29 Jan after	27.4 °C	46 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
30 Jan after	27.9 °C	52 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 31 Dec 2025

After · 27 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 13 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 84 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 41: 2.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak84 µg/m³

Days over the guideline4 days

PM1087 µg/m³

Optical depth0.75

WHO 15

67891011121314151617181920212223

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 · 608Every 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 Overstrand fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 7 January 2026 to 20 January 2026 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 8 January 2026 to 20 January 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 14,112 hectares (141.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Overstrand (11,974 ha, 7.1 %); Cape Agulhas (1,601 ha, 0.5 %); Theewaterskloof (566 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 27.6 °C, humidity dropped to 44 % and gusts hit 71 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, class 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

27 October 2026 Start date: 8 January 2026 → 7 January 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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.

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 8 January 2026 to 20 January 2026. 608 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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