Roper Gulf fire, 17 September 2026 Roper Gulf, Barkly
The fire started on 17 September 2026 in Roper Gulf, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 81,742 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 82th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3511 with a page). Number 14 in Australia in 2026, of 891.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 81,742ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 27days
- 17 Sept 2026 – 13 Oct 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- local government areas
- Started on
- 17 Sept
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 1,616
- in a single hotspot: 262 MW
- Danger at start
- 53
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 565MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.2 mm on 14 Oct.
This area had burned before
49% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 971 ha in 2016, 5,075 ha in 2017, 5,984 ha in 2018, 748 ha in 2019, 1,443 ha in 2020, 5,849 ha in 2021, 11,247 ha in 2022, 9,895 ha in 2023, 9,306 ha in 2024, 1,712 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 40,134 ha that had burned before.
- 8,889 ha Roper Gulf fire, November 2022 13,266 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,056 ha Roper Gulf fire, August 2018 29,238 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,605 ha Barkly fire, November 2024 15,852 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,024 ha Roper Gulf fire, August 2023 35,398 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 620 ha Barkly fire, December 2017 9,125 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 412 ha Barkly fire, November 2025 8,159 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 79 ha Roper Gulf fire, August 2023 18,713 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 38 ha Roper Gulf fire, August 2025 8,491 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
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
-
Roper Gulf where it started71,431 ha reached on 17 Sept0.4 %
-
11,186 ha reached on 18 Sept0.0 %
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.
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) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 Sept | 34.8 °C | 16 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 18 Sept | 34.3 °C | 15 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 19 Sept | 33.0 °C | 26 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 20 Sept | 33.9 °C | 19 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 21 Sept | 34.4 °C | 15 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 22 Sept | 35.1 °C | 13 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 23 Sept | 35.0 °C | 15 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 24 Sept | 35.5 °C | 14 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 25 Sept | 33.3 °C | 24 % | 46 km/h | 0.2 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 26 Sept | 34.9 °C | 17 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 27 Sept | 34.8 °C | 21 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 28 Sept | 35.4 °C | 15 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 29 Sept | 35.1 °C | 19 % | 46 km/h | 0.1 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 30 Sept | 33.3 °C | 31 % | 42 km/h | 1.8 mm | High 28 |
| 1 Oct | 31.7 °C | 38 % | 51 km/h | 0.7 mm | High 33 |
| 2 Oct | 33.6 °C | 24 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 3 Oct | 33.6 °C | 25 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 4 Oct | 34.8 °C | 21 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 5 Oct | 35.8 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 6 Oct | 38.0 °C | 18 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 7 Oct | 37.2 °C | 20 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 8 Oct | 37.1 °C | 24 % | 30 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 45 |
| 9 Oct | 38.5 °C | 22 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 10 Oct | 37.0 °C | 26 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 11 Oct | 37.2 °C | 26 % | 33 km/h | 0.4 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 12 Oct | 38.8 °C | 22 % | 35 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 49 |
| 13 Oct | 37.8 °C | 28 % | 25 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 43 |
| 14 Oct after | 34.7 °C | 36 % | 26 km/h | 3.2 mm | Moderate 13 |
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 19 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 130 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 69: 4.6 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 · 1,616Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 29,238 haRoper Gulf30 August 2018 · 28 days · 12 km away
- 15,852 haBarkly13 November 2024 · 7 days · 19 km away
- 18,713 haRoper Gulf12 August 2023 · 19 days · 25 km away
- 22,878 haBarkly10 November 2024 · 8 days · 34 km away
- 19,525 haRoper Gulf14 November 2024 · 4 days · 37 km away
- 68,930 haRoper Gulf16 September 2026 · 9 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Roper Gulf fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 17 September 2026 to 13 October 2026 (27 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 September 2026 to 13 October 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 81,742 hectares (817.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Roper Gulf (71,431 ha, 0.4 %); Barkly (11,186 ha, 0.0 %).
- Is the Roper Gulf fire still active?
- No fire detections since 13 Oct 2026, 16:45 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.8 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, class Extreme.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Australia (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: 000 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Name: Barkly → Roper Gulf.
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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 18 September 2026 to 13 October 2026. 1,616 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: ECMWF IFS model, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives.
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 ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)). 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.