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Roper Gulf fire, 27 July 2019 Roper Gulf

Out · last detection 29 Aug 2019, 04:07 UTC

The fire started on 27 July 2019 in Roper Gulf, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 34 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,371 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1258th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3514 with a page). Number 336 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Roper Gulf · 2018Roper Gulf · 2024Roper Gulf · 2026

Burnt area
11,371ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
34days
27 Jul 2019 – 29 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
27 Jul
2019
Heat detections
809
in a single hotspot: 106 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Average daily power
267MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Jul29 Aug
29 Aug 2019

How it evolved, day by day

27 Jul 2019 · 15 MW · 4 28 Jul 2019 · 148 MW · 6 29 Jul 2019 · 177 MW · 8 30 Jul 2019 · 2,586 MW · 98 31 Jul 2019 · 396 MW · 37 1 Aug 2019 · 661 MW · 77 2 Aug 2019 · 516 MW · 47 3 Aug 2019 · 132 MW · 18 4 Aug 2019 · 238 MW · 22 5 Aug 2019 · 226 MW · 25 6 Aug 2019 · 88 MW · 19 7 Aug 2019 · 175 MW · 20 8 Aug 2019 · 177 MW · 28 9 Aug 2019 · 198 MW · 26 10 Aug 2019 · 106 MW · 25 11 Aug 2019 · 347 MW · 48 12 Aug 2019 · 500 MW · 42 13 Aug 2019 · 404 MW · 34 14 Aug 2019 · 198 MW · 35 15 Aug 2019 · 191 MW · 34 16 Aug 2019 · 164 MW · 24 17 Aug 2019 · 124 MW · 22 18 Aug 2019 · 103 MW · 9 19 Aug 2019 · 44 MW · 17 20 Aug 2019 · 254 MW · 34 21 Aug 2019 · 279 MW · 19 22 Aug 2019 · 77 MW · 11 23 Aug 2019 · 252 MW · 11 24 Aug 2019 · 10 MW · 3 26 Aug 2019 · 5 MW · 1 27 Aug 2019 · 6 MW · 1 28 Aug 2019 · 10 MW · 2 29 Aug 2019 · 12 MW · 2
27 Jul 30 Jul 1 Aug 6 Aug 11 Aug 16 Aug 21 Aug 27 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
51km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

20% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,287 ha in 2018.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 7.2% of the area of London (114 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
    11,253 ha reached on 27 Jul
    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)
27 Jul 26.1 °C 41 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Jul 26.0 °C 48 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
29 Jul 26.5 °C 47 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
30 Jul 27.0 °C 47 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
31 Jul 27.5 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
1 Aug 26.1 °C 29 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Aug 25.6 °C 28 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Aug 25.9 °C 38 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Aug 25.2 °C 42 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
5 Aug 25.5 °C 53 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
6 Aug 26.1 °C 45 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
7 Aug 26.6 °C 44 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
8 Aug 27.8 °C 38 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
9 Aug 27.6 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
10 Aug 27.7 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 Aug 25.3 °C 23 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Aug 24.1 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
13 Aug 24.6 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Aug 25.6 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
15 Aug 26.1 °C 47 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
16 Aug 26.6 °C 51 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
17 Aug 26.5 °C 60 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
18 Aug 27.5 °C 61 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
19 Aug 27.4 °C 27 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Aug 25.8 °C 24 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
21 Aug 25.5 °C 24 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Aug 26.1 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
23 Aug 26.4 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Aug 24.8 °C 43 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Aug 24.8 °C 53 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
26 Aug 27.3 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Aug 27.6 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Aug 27.1 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
29 Aug 25.6 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
30 Aug after 26.2 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 Aug after 26.0 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Sept after 27.9 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
2 Sept after 27.8 °C 36 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Sept after 27.6 °C 45 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Sept after 25.6 °C 60 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
5 Sept after 25.6 °C 57 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
6 Sept after 26.0 °C 54 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
7 Sept after 26.9 °C 46 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
8 Sept after 29.1 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Jul 2019
After · 5 Sept 2019

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 · 809Every 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 27 July 2019 to 29 August 2019 (34 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 July 2019 to 24 August 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 11,371 hectares (113.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Roper Gulf (11,253 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.8 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, class Very 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 · 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: 24 August 2019 → 29 August 2019.

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 27 July 2019 to 24 August 2019. 809 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.