How long did the Roper Gulf fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 24 November 2019 to 15 December 2019 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 November 2019 to 15 December 2019.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,186 hectares (71.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: East Arnhem (6,271 ha, 0.2 %); Roper Gulf (989 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 42.3 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, 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.

AU · Australia · 2019-11-24 → 2019-12-15

Roper Gulf fire, 24 November 2019 East Arnhem, Roper Gulf

Out · last detection 15 Dec 2019, 03:42 UTC

The fire started on 24 November 2019 in Roper Gulf, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,186 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 2221th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3521 with a page). Number 539 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Compare with…

Suggestions: East Arnhem · 2025 Roper Gulf · 2025 East Arnhem · 2019 Roper Gulf · 2026

Burnt area: 7,186ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 22days; 24 Nov 2019 – 15 Dec 2019
Municipalities hit: 2; local government areas
Started on: 24 Nov; 2019
Heat detections: 220; in a single hotspot: 66 MW
Danger at start: 48; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 109MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Nov15 Dec

Play back 15 Dec 2019

How it evolved, day by day

24 Nov 29 Nov 3 Dec 6 Dec 8 Dec 9 Dec 12 Dec 15 Dec

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

The weather it burned in

42°high

45km/h · peak gust

10%lowest humidity

It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

20% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 105 ha in 2016, 1,525 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,470 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 4.5% of the area of London (72 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

East Arnhem

6,271 ha reached on 28 Nov

0.2 %
Roper Gulf where it started

989 ha reached on 24 Nov

0.0 %

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)
24 Nov	39.9 °C	21 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
25 Nov	39.1 °C	21 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
26 Nov	39.6 °C	22 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
27 Nov	39.8 °C	23 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
28 Nov	39.7 °C	24 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
29 Nov	39.5 °C	26 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
30 Nov	39.6 °C	22 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
1 Dec	38.5 °C	25 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
2 Dec	36.6 °C	34 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
3 Dec	39.3 °C	14 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
4 Dec	39.3 °C	13 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
5 Dec	41.2 °C	11 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
6 Dec	41.7 °C	10 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 64
7 Dec	41.5 °C	15 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 62
8 Dec	42.3 °C	14 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 64
9 Dec	41.2 °C	19 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
10 Dec	39.9 °C	20 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
11 Dec	39.0 °C	27 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
12 Dec	41.8 °C	18 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
13 Dec	41.2 °C	21 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
14 Dec	41.5 °C	16 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
15 Dec	42.3 °C	15 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
16 Dec after	41.7 °C	16 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
17 Dec after	41.1 °C	22 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
18 Dec after	41.8 °C	20 %	40 km/h	0.2 mm	Extreme 58
19 Dec after	39.3 °C	24 %	43 km/h	0.3 mm	Extreme 54
20 Dec after	40.4 °C	22 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
21 Dec after	40.3 °C	24 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
22 Dec after	38.8 °C	27 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
23 Dec after	40.1 °C	20 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
24 Dec after	41.2 °C	17 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
25 Dec after	41.7 °C	17 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 17 Nov 2019

After · 22 Dec 2019

Before After

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 · 220Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

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 24 November 2019 to 15 December 2019 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 November 2019 to 15 December 2019.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,186 hectares (71.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: East Arnhem (6,271 ha, 0.2 %); Roper Gulf (989 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 42.3 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

26 October 2026 Start date: 27 November 2019 → 24 November 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.

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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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 November 2019 to 15 December 2019. 220 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.

Where it burned