How long did the Witzenberg fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 November 2025 and 24 November 2025: 10 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 9,373 hectares (93.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Witzenberg (9,413 ha, 0.9 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 30.4 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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 · 2025-11-15 → 2025-11-24

Witzenberg fire, November 2025 Witzenberg

Out · last detection 24 Nov 2025, 13:42 UTC

The fire started on 15 November 2025 in Witzenberg, South Africa, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,373 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 35th largest in Western Cape since 2016 (of 164 with a page). Number 7 in South Africa in 2025, of 87.

Burnt area: 9,373ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 10days; 15 Nov 2025 – 24 Nov 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 15 Nov; 2025
Heat detections: 412; in a single hotspot: 89 MW
Danger at start: 28; High · FWI index
Energy released: 3.9GW; sum of detected power

Play back 24 Nov 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Nov24 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

15161718192021222324

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

The weather it burned in

30°high

53km/h · peak gust

13%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

62% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,536 ha in 2016, 603 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,787 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Witzenberg where it started

9,413 ha reached on 15 Nov

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)
15 Nov	24.7 °C	21 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
16 Nov	24.0 °C	20 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
17 Nov	26.6 °C	16 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
18 Nov	26.5 °C	20 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
19 Nov	26.3 °C	19 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
20 Nov	28.4 °C	14 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
21 Nov	30.4 °C	13 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
22 Nov	30.0 °C	19 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
23 Nov	24.6 °C	30 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
24 Nov	28.6 °C	15 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
25 Nov after	31.3 °C	13 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
26 Nov after	28.7 °C	19 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
27 Nov after	30.0 °C	22 %	44 km/h	0.2 mm	High 32
28 Nov after	23.7 °C	32 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
29 Nov after	23.1 °C	39 %	46 km/h	0.1 mm	High 24
30 Nov after	27.5 °C	22 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
1 Dec after	28.4 °C	13 %	58 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
2 Dec after	25.2 °C	25 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
3 Dec after	28.5 °C	17 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
4 Dec after	31.0 °C	14 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 8 Nov 2025

After · 1 Dec 2025

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 23 November 2025 the air beside the fire reached 27 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak27 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1028 µg/m³

Optical depth0.19

WHO 15

131415161718192021222324252627

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 · 412Every 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 Witzenberg fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 November 2025 and 24 November 2025: 10 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 9,373 hectares (93.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Witzenberg (9,413 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 30.4 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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

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.

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?

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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