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Roper Gulf fire, 25 August 2017 Roper Gulf

Out · last detection 26 Sept 2017, 16:19 UTC

The fire started on 25 August 2017 in Roper Gulf, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 33 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 21,196 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 571th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3515 with a page). Number 97 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Roper Gulf · 2022Roper Gulf · 2024Roper Gulf · 2021Roper Gulf · 2023

Burnt area
21,196ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
33days
25 Aug 2017 – 26 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
25 Aug
2017
Heat detections
747
in a single hotspot: 57 MW
Danger at start
53
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
134MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Aug26 Sept
26 Sept 2017

How it evolved, day by day

25 Aug 2017 · 4 MW · 3 26 Aug 2017 · 16 MW · 3 27 Aug 2017 · 22 MW · 6 28 Aug 2017 · 23 MW · 7 29 Aug 2017 · 38 MW · 12 30 Aug 2017 · 25 MW · 16 31 Aug 2017 · 259 MW · 46 1 Sept 2017 · 48 MW · 15 2 Sept 2017 · 51 MW · 7 3 Sept 2017 · 187 MW · 39 4 Sept 2017 · 101 MW · 29 5 Sept 2017 · 152 MW · 28 6 Sept 2017 · 236 MW · 37 7 Sept 2017 · 96 MW · 12 8 Sept 2017 · 36 MW · 11 9 Sept 2017 · 75 MW · 22 10 Sept 2017 · 148 MW · 27 11 Sept 2017 · 239 MW · 36 12 Sept 2017 · 71 MW · 12 13 Sept 2017 · 87 MW · 15 14 Sept 2017 · 70 MW · 19 15 Sept 2017 · 43 MW · 22 16 Sept 2017 · 76 MW · 12 17 Sept 2017 · 157 MW · 20 18 Sept 2017 · 157 MW · 35 19 Sept 2017 · 384 MW · 60 20 Sept 2017 · 643 MW · 86 21 Sept 2017 · 231 MW · 33 22 Sept 2017 · 415 MW · 50 23 Sept 2017 · 58 MW · 8 24 Sept 2017 · 109 MW · 15 26 Sept 2017 · 31 MW · 4
25 Aug 30 Aug 4 Sept 9 Sept 14 Sept 19 Sept 20 Sept 24 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
52km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 115 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 13% of the area of London (212 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

  1. Roper Gulf where it started
    21,257 ha reached on 25 Aug
    0.1 %

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 2015
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, 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.

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)
25 Aug 32.0 °C 13 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
26 Aug 31.1 °C 10 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
27 Aug 32.4 °C 7 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
28 Aug 30.1 °C 10 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
29 Aug 31.3 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
30 Aug 31.1 °C 9 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
31 Aug 32.5 °C 10 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
1 Sept 33.3 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
2 Sept 34.5 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
3 Sept 34.8 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Sept 35.3 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
5 Sept 34.4 °C 19 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
6 Sept 34.2 °C 13 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
7 Sept 33.1 °C 7 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
8 Sept 32.3 °C 9 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
9 Sept 33.4 °C 9 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
10 Sept 33.3 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
11 Sept 34.4 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
12 Sept 36.0 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
13 Sept 36.8 °C 21 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Sept 34.8 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
15 Sept 34.9 °C 7 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
16 Sept 34.7 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
17 Sept 34.5 °C 12 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
18 Sept 35.0 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
19 Sept 35.7 °C 17 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
20 Sept 36.1 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
21 Sept 35.8 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
22 Sept 37.3 °C 14 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
23 Sept 37.5 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
24 Sept 37.9 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
25 Sept 36.6 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
26 Sept 38.3 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Sept after 38.3 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
28 Sept after 37.8 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Sept after 37.0 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
30 Sept after 36.8 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Oct after 36.9 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 41
2 Oct after 35.6 °C 35 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Oct after 37.9 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
4 Oct after 38.1 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
5 Oct after 37.9 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
6 Oct after 37.8 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Aug 2017
After · 3 Oct 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 · 747Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 25 August 2017 to 26 September 2017 (33 days). The perimeter dates it from 28 August 2017 to 23 September 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 21,196 hectares (212.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Roper Gulf (21,257 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 66, 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 23 September 2017 → 26 September 2017.
  2. Start date: 28 August 2017 → 25 August 2017.

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?

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.

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 28 August 2017 to 23 September 2017. 747 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 2015, 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 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.