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Roper Gulf fire, 4 December 2017 Roper Gulf

Out · last detection 11 Dec 2017, 04:45 UTC

The fire started on 4 December 2017 in Roper Gulf, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,824 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1989th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 489 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
7,824ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
4 Dec 2017 – 10 Dec 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
4 Dec
2017
Heat detections
263
in a single hotspot: 154 MW
Danger at start
20
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
4.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Dec 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Dec10 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

456781011

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
46km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.2 mm on 21 Dec.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Roper Gulf where it started
    7,900 ha reached on 4 Dec
    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)
29 Nov 37.1 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
30 Nov 36.8 °C 33 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
1 Dec 38.1 °C 34 % 33 km/h 4.4 mm Low 9
2 Dec 36.9 °C 38 % 35 km/h 4.9 mm Low 6
3 Dec 35.4 °C 32 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
4 Dec 36.8 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
5 Dec 35.9 °C 7 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Dec 37.5 °C 10 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
7 Dec 38.4 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
8 Dec 38.7 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
9 Dec 37.9 °C 26 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Dec 40.5 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Dec after 40.1 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Dec after 39.3 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
13 Dec after 39.2 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Dec after 38.4 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Dec after 38.1 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Dec after 38.4 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
17 Dec after 38.0 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Dec after 37.9 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.4 mm High 35
19 Dec after 38.4 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
20 Dec after 38.5 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.6 mm High 30
21 Dec after 36.3 °C 34 % 37 km/h 4.2 mm Moderate 14

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Nov 2017
After · 17 Dec 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 · 263Every 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 4 December 2017 and 10 December 2017: 7 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 7,824 hectares (78.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Roper Gulf (7,900 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.5 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, class High.
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.

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.

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.