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Roper Gulf fire, 30 August 2018 Roper Gulf

Out · last detection 26 Sept 2018, 04:26 UTC

The fire started on 30 August 2018 in Roper Gulf, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 28 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 29,238 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 384th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3514 with a page). Number 74 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Roper Gulf · 2026Roper Gulf · 2023Barkly · 2024Roper Gulf · 2024

Burnt area
29,238ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
28days
30 Aug 2018 – 26 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
30 Aug
2018
Heat detections
1,001
in a single hotspot: 96 MW
Danger at start
55
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
214MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Aug26 Sept
26 Sept 2018

How it evolved, day by day

30 Aug 2018 · 19 MW · 12 31 Aug 2018 · 158 MW · 25 1 Sept 2018 · 73 MW · 7 2 Sept 2018 · 132 MW · 32 3 Sept 2018 · 161 MW · 49 4 Sept 2018 · 326 MW · 61 5 Sept 2018 · 372 MW · 120 6 Sept 2018 · 319 MW · 51 7 Sept 2018 · 591 MW · 68 8 Sept 2018 · 102 MW · 32 9 Sept 2018 · 426 MW · 61 10 Sept 2018 · 209 MW · 77 11 Sept 2018 · 531 MW · 62 12 Sept 2018 · 553 MW · 77 13 Sept 2018 · 125 MW · 38 14 Sept 2018 · 465 MW · 49 15 Sept 2018 · 133 MW · 18 16 Sept 2018 · 84 MW · 19 17 Sept 2018 · 32 MW · 4 18 Sept 2018 · 114 MW · 23 19 Sept 2018 · 175 MW · 15 20 Sept 2018 · 53 MW · 12 21 Sept 2018 · 24 MW · 6 22 Sept 2018 · 212 MW · 17 23 Sept 2018 · 532 MW · 52 24 Sept 2018 · 12 MW · 3 25 Sept 2018 · 20 MW · 6 26 Sept 2018 · 28 MW · 5
30 Aug 3 Sept 7 Sept 11 Sept 15 Sept 19 Sept 23 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
48km/h · peak gust
3%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,045 ha in 2016, 167 ha in 2017.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 18% of the area of London (292 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
    29,635 ha reached on 30 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 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)
30 Aug 33.5 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
31 Aug 33.0 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Sept 34.1 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Sept 36.1 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
3 Sept 36.2 °C 13 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
4 Sept 33.7 °C 11 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
5 Sept 33.5 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
6 Sept 35.7 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
7 Sept 36.7 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
8 Sept 35.5 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
9 Sept 35.7 °C 12 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
10 Sept 33.1 °C 3 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
11 Sept 34.5 °C 5 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
12 Sept 34.6 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
13 Sept 34.4 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
14 Sept 36.0 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
15 Sept 36.5 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
16 Sept 33.5 °C 13 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
17 Sept 35.0 °C 8 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
18 Sept 36.2 °C 8 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
19 Sept 36.7 °C 9 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
20 Sept 34.9 °C 10 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
21 Sept 35.3 °C 8 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
22 Sept 36.1 °C 6 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
23 Sept 36.0 °C 5 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
24 Sept 35.7 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
25 Sept 35.4 °C 11 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
26 Sept 35.1 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
27 Sept after 35.4 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
28 Sept after 35.8 °C 16 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
29 Sept after 35.5 °C 14 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
30 Sept after 35.8 °C 15 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
1 Oct after 36.5 °C 16 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
2 Oct after 36.0 °C 17 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
3 Oct after 37.5 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
4 Oct after 37.7 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
5 Oct after 36.7 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
6 Oct after 37.8 °C 9 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Aug 2018
After · 3 Oct 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 · 1,001Every 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 30 August 2018 to 26 September 2018 (28 days). The perimeter dates it from 30 August 2018 to 23 September 2018.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 29,238 hectares (292.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Roper Gulf (29,635 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 3 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 71, 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 23 September 2018 → 26 September 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 30 August 2018 to 23 September 2018. 1,001 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.