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Roper Gulf fire, 1 May 2018 Roper Gulf

Out · last detection 31 May 2018, 04:39 UTC

The fire started on 1 May 2018 in Roper Gulf, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 31 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,565 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1023th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3514 with a page). Number 246 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Roper Gulf · 2023Roper Gulf · 2019Roper Gulf · 2018Roper Gulf · 2021

Burnt area
13,565ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
31days
1 May 2018 – 31 May 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
1 May
2018
Heat detections
532
in a single hotspot: 32 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Average daily power
80MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 May31 May
31 May 2018

How it evolved, day by day

1 May 2018 · 3 MW · 2 2 May 2018 · 4 MW · 3 3 May 2018 · 25 MW · 9 4 May 2018 · 18 MW · 5 5 May 2018 · 72 MW · 13 6 May 2018 · 146 MW · 18 7 May 2018 · 221 MW · 28 8 May 2018 · 42 MW · 11 9 May 2018 · 66 MW · 22 10 May 2018 · 160 MW · 32 11 May 2018 · 103 MW · 24 12 May 2018 · 48 MW · 33 13 May 2018 · 86 MW · 37 14 May 2018 · 220 MW · 38 15 May 2018 · 151 MW · 40 16 May 2018 · 118 MW · 19 17 May 2018 · 198 MW · 42 18 May 2018 · 155 MW · 26 19 May 2018 · 79 MW · 18 20 May 2018 · 36 MW · 10 21 May 2018 · 22 MW · 5 22 May 2018 · 63 MW · 14 23 May 2018 · 20 MW · 8 24 May 2018 · 119 MW · 25 25 May 2018 · 68 MW · 20 26 May 2018 · 109 MW · 21 27 May 2018 · 13 MW · 4 29 May 2018 · 1 MW · 1 30 May 2018 · 13 MW · 2 31 May 2018 · 5 MW · 2
1 May 6 May 7 May 11 May 16 May 21 May 26 May

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
55km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 38 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

14% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,843 ha in 2016, 11 ha in 2017.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 8.6% of the area of London (136 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
    13,573 ha reached on 1 May
    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 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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)
1 May 32.4 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 May 32.8 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
3 May 33.6 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
4 May 33.6 °C 29 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 May 32.8 °C 30 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 May 32.4 °C 25 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 May 32.8 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 May 32.7 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 May 32.5 °C 26 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 May 32.6 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 May 31.3 °C 16 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
12 May 27.7 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
13 May 27.7 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 May 27.6 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
15 May 27.6 °C 13 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
16 May 27.4 °C 14 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
17 May 27.5 °C 15 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
18 May 28.3 °C 24 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
19 May 28.1 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 May 30.0 °C 25 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
21 May 30.7 °C 29 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 May 29.5 °C 21 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 May 28.6 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 May 31.1 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
25 May 31.6 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 May 31.5 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 May 30.7 °C 35 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 May 30.5 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 May 30.5 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 May 30.3 °C 27 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
31 May 30.1 °C 25 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 Jun after 28.9 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
2 Jun after 28.9 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
3 Jun after 28.2 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Jun after 26.9 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
5 Jun after 26.4 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
6 Jun after 27.4 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Jun after 28.9 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Jun after 29.6 °C 35 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Jun after 30.2 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Jun after 30.8 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Apr 2018
After · 7 Jun 2018

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 · 532Every 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 1 May 2018 to 31 May 2018 (31 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 May 2018 to 27 May 2018.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 13,565 hectares (135.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Roper Gulf (13,573 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.6 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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: 27 May 2018 → 31 May 2018.
  2. Start date: 3 May 2018 → 1 May 2018.

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 3 May 2018 to 27 May 2018. 532 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 2020, 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.