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Roper Gulf fire, 8 July 2017 Roper Gulf

Out · last detection 26 Jul 2017, 04:32 UTC

The fire started on 8 July 2017 in Roper Gulf, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,120 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 3377th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 833 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
5,120ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
18days
8 Jul 2017 – 25 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
8 Jul
2017
Heat detections
227
in a single hotspot: 33 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Jul 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Jul25 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

891011121314151617181920212223242526

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
54km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

10% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 659 ha in 2016. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 512 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Roper Gulf where it started
    5,114 ha reached on 8 Jul
    0.0 %

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)
8 Jul 32.6 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
9 Jul 32.5 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
10 Jul 31.6 °C 38 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Jul 31.6 °C 37 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
12 Jul 31.8 °C 33 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Jul 32.8 °C 25 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Jul 31.2 °C 27 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Jul 30.7 °C 26 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Jul 30.6 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Jul 31.2 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Jul 32.4 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Jul 32.1 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Jul 30.7 °C 18 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 Jul 30.2 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Jul 30.7 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Jul 31.2 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Jul 32.4 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
25 Jul 32.8 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Jul after 32.2 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
27 Jul after 31.2 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Jul after 30.9 °C 32 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Jul after 30.7 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Jul after 31.0 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
31 Jul after 31.8 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Aug after 31.2 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
2 Aug after 32.1 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
3 Aug after 29.9 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Aug after 31.4 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Jul 2017
After · 1 Aug 2017

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 227Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Australia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Roper Gulf fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 July 2017 and 25 July 2017: 18 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 5,120 hectares (51.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Roper Gulf (5,114 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.8 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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

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.

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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 000.

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.