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Roper Gulf fire, 29 August 2017 Roper Gulf

Out · last detection 23 Sept 2017, 15:35 UTC

The fire started on 29 August 2017 in Roper Gulf, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 43,561 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 213th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3514 with a page). Number 38 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Roper Gulf · 2025Roper Gulf · 2026Roper Gulf · 2019Roper Gulf · 2026

Burnt area
43,561ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
26days
29 Aug 2017 – 23 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
29 Aug
2017
Heat detections
1,424
in a single hotspot: 241 MW
Danger at start
70
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
551MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Aug23 Sept
23 Sept 2017

How it evolved, day by day

29 Aug 2017 · 295 MW · 46 30 Aug 2017 · 367 MW · 106 31 Aug 2017 · 5,927 MW · 244 1 Sept 2017 · 994 MW · 94 2 Sept 2017 · 509 MW · 41 3 Sept 2017 · 474 MW · 43 4 Sept 2017 · 23 MW · 4 5 Sept 2017 · 1 MW · 1 6 Sept 2017 · 55 MW · 11 7 Sept 2017 · 91 MW · 11 8 Sept 2017 · 204 MW · 25 9 Sept 2017 · 561 MW · 53 10 Sept 2017 · 204 MW · 43 11 Sept 2017 · 633 MW · 71 12 Sept 2017 · 394 MW · 61 13 Sept 2017 · 424 MW · 44 14 Sept 2017 · 242 MW · 59 15 Sept 2017 · 321 MW · 88 16 Sept 2017 · 521 MW · 100 17 Sept 2017 · 676 MW · 103 18 Sept 2017 · 662 MW · 54 19 Sept 2017 · 247 MW · 54 20 Sept 2017 · 177 MW · 29 21 Sept 2017 · 179 MW · 25 22 Sept 2017 · 99 MW · 11 23 Sept 2017 · 57 MW · 3
29 Aug 31 Aug 2 Sept 6 Sept 10 Sept 14 Sept 18 Sept 22 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

37°high
60km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone 54 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 573 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 28% of the area of London (436 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
    43,853 ha reached on 29 Aug
    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 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)
27 Aug 31.5 °C 7 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
28 Aug 30.4 °C 10 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
29 Aug 31.3 °C 9 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
30 Aug 30.9 °C 9 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
31 Aug 32.4 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
1 Sept 33.3 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
2 Sept 34.4 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
3 Sept 34.2 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
4 Sept 34.3 °C 19 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
5 Sept 34.4 °C 12 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
6 Sept 33.7 °C 13 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
7 Sept 32.8 °C 6 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 79
8 Sept 32.5 °C 9 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
9 Sept 33.5 °C 9 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
10 Sept 33.9 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
11 Sept 34.3 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
12 Sept 35.4 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
13 Sept 36.7 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
14 Sept 34.5 °C 18 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 70
15 Sept 34.1 °C 8 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
16 Sept 34.2 °C 9 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
17 Sept 34.6 °C 15 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
18 Sept 34.4 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
19 Sept 36.2 °C 21 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
20 Sept 35.6 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
21 Sept 36.1 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
22 Sept 36.5 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
23 Sept 37.1 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
24 Sept after 36.9 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
25 Sept after 36.2 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
26 Sept after 37.8 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
27 Sept after 38.0 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
28 Sept after 38.3 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
29 Sept after 37.0 °C 20 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
30 Sept after 36.9 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
1 Oct after 36.5 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
2 Oct after 35.1 °C 25 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
3 Oct after 38.0 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Aug 2017
After · 30 Sept 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 · 1,424Every 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 29 August 2017 and 23 September 2017: 26 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 43,561 hectares (435.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Roper Gulf (43,853 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 79, class Very 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 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
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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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 1,424 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.