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Roper Gulf fire, 7 August 2019 Roper Gulf

Out · last detection 5 Sept 2019, 05:16 UTC

The fire started on 7 August 2019 in Roper Gulf, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 30 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 47,665 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 182th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3515 with a page). Number 57 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Roper Gulf · 2016Roper Gulf · 2017Roper Gulf · 2021Roper Gulf · 2026

Burnt area
47,665ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
30days
7 Aug 2019 – 5 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
7 Aug
2019
Heat detections
2,234
in a single hotspot: 197 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
749MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Aug5 Sept
5 Sept 2019

How it evolved, day by day

7 Aug 2019 · 10 MW · 3 8 Aug 2019 · 198 MW · 18 9 Aug 2019 · 248 MW · 21 10 Aug 2019 · 504 MW · 80 11 Aug 2019 · 612 MW · 90 12 Aug 2019 · 735 MW · 92 13 Aug 2019 · 1,040 MW · 78 14 Aug 2019 · 136 MW · 28 15 Aug 2019 · 397 MW · 68 16 Aug 2019 · 1,413 MW · 98 17 Aug 2019 · 121 MW · 22 18 Aug 2019 · 163 MW · 19 19 Aug 2019 · 3,956 MW · 364 20 Aug 2019 · 3,384 MW · 408 21 Aug 2019 · 3,337 MW · 270 22 Aug 2019 · 1,164 MW · 129 23 Aug 2019 · 790 MW · 71 24 Aug 2019 · 469 MW · 33 26 Aug 2019 · 2 MW · 3 27 Aug 2019 · 346 MW · 48 28 Aug 2019 · 593 MW · 134 29 Aug 2019 · 858 MW · 88 30 Aug 2019 · 88 MW · 17 31 Aug 2019 · 208 MW · 37 1 Sept 2019 · 84 MW · 5 2 Sept 2019 · 73 MW · 4 3 Sept 2019 · 24 MW · 3 5 Sept 2019 · 27 MW · 3
7 Aug 11 Aug 15 Aug 19 Aug 23 Aug 28 Aug 1 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

34°high
53km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

59% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 17,785 ha in 2016, 2,475 ha in 2017, 15,568 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 28,117 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 30% of the area of London (477 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
    48,212 ha reached on 7 Aug
    0.3 %

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)
7 Aug 31.7 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
8 Aug 33.9 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Aug 32.7 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
10 Aug 32.2 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
11 Aug 27.5 °C 12 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
12 Aug 26.4 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
13 Aug 27.4 °C 11 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
14 Aug 29.4 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
15 Aug 30.5 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Aug 31.8 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Aug 32.1 °C 37 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Aug 34.1 °C 31 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Aug 30.7 °C 15 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
20 Aug 27.9 °C 13 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
21 Aug 29.4 °C 14 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
22 Aug 30.8 °C 10 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
23 Aug 31.1 °C 9 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
24 Aug 30.7 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
25 Aug 30.9 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
26 Aug 32.3 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
27 Aug 32.0 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
28 Aug 31.3 °C 10 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
29 Aug 29.1 °C 9 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
30 Aug 30.8 °C 10 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
31 Aug 32.1 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
1 Sept 33.1 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
2 Sept 33.0 °C 17 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
3 Sept 33.6 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
4 Sept 31.0 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Sept 30.3 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Sept after 30.9 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Sept after 32.3 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Sept after 35.4 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
9 Sept after 31.7 °C 6 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
10 Sept after 31.4 °C 9 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
11 Sept after 31.9 °C 9 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
12 Sept after 30.3 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
13 Sept after 31.9 °C 14 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
14 Sept after 32.2 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
15 Sept after 31.6 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Jul 2019
After · 12 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 · 2,234Every 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 7 August 2019 to 5 September 2019 (30 days). The perimeter dates it from 8 August 2019 to 5 September 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 47,665 hectares (476.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Roper Gulf (48,212 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.1 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Start date: 8 August 2019 → 7 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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 8 August 2019 to 5 September 2019. 2,234 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.