Burned area
satellite only5,275ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 16 Dec 2019 – 29 Dec 2019
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
AU · Australia · –
Roper Gulf fire, 16 December 2019 Roper Gulf, East Arnhem
Out · last detection 29 Dec 2019, 04:20 UTC
The fire started on 16 December 2019 in Roper Gulf, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,275 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
This entry is probably a savanna fire in Australia’s tropical north, not a bushfire like those in the south of the country. Millions of hectares of northern savanna and grassland burn every year: much of it in burns lit on purpose early in the dry season (traditional fire management, parks and cattle stations), the rest in grass fires that return to the same ground every few years. This is our assumption, based on the location; it is not confirmed. That is why it is left out of the wildfire rankings.
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Fire page data · version 2026-10-26matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only14days
16 Dec 2019 to 29 Dec 2019: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 29 Dec 2019, 04:20 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only16 Dec 2019
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 16 Dec 2019
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only172
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 77 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 16 Dec 2019 – 29 Dec 2019
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only1,225MW
Total radiative power on 25 December 2019; hotspots that day: 76.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 25 Dec 2019
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model43.9FWI · very high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 40.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 16 Dec 2019, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model42.1°C · 20% RH
High of 42.1 °C and minimum humidity of 20% on 26 December 2019; gusts of 44 km/h on 19 December 2019.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 16 Dec 2019 – 29 Dec 2019
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logLast day with fire: 26 December 2019 → 29 December 2019.
-
logStart date: 22 December 2019 → 16 December 2019.
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
What was saved on 26 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 5,275 ha
- Dates
- 16 Dec 2019 – 29 Dec 2019
- Name
- Roper Gulf
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/roper-gulf-2019-12-11?v=2026-10-26A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire roper-gulf-2019-12-11.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-12-16 | 7 | 164 | 41.2 | 27.1 | 17 | 17.4 | 36 | 0 | 43.9 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-17 | 7 | 55 | 40.5 | 27.8 | 23 | 17.7 | 38.2 | 0 | 49.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-18 | 7 | 52 | 40.6 | 26.2 | 22 | 18.7 | 40.7 | 0.1 | 57.8 | extremo | 1 |
| 2019-12-19 | 3 | 20 | 38.1 | 26 | 27 | 17.9 | 43.6 | 0.2 | 63.1 | extremo | 1 |
| 2019-12-20 | 1 | 5 | 39.3 | 25.6 | 26 | 17.3 | 41 | 0.5 | 57.5 | extremo | 1 |
| 2019-12-21 | 0 | 0 | 39.3 | 26.9 | 28 | 18.8 | 43.6 | 0.2 | 52.2 | extremo | 1 |
| 2019-12-22 | 4 | 19 | 37.1 | 26.6 | 34 | 18 | 42.8 | 0 | 52.5 | extremo | 1 |
| 2019-12-23 | 27 | 384 | 38.9 | 25.3 | 24 | 17.4 | 42.8 | 0 | 52.7 | extremo | 1 |
| 2019-12-24 | 9 | 129 | 39.9 | 25.6 | 20 | 16.9 | 41.4 | 0 | 56.6 | extremo | 1 |
| 2019-12-25 | 76 | 1,225 | 40.6 | 26.2 | 19 | 18.1 | 39.6 | 0 | 50.1 | extremo | 1 |
| 2019-12-26 | 29 | 355 | 42.1 | 27.3 | 20 | 15.8 | 32.4 | 1.5 | 44.9 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-27 | 0 | 0 | 41.5 | 27.2 | 27 | 17 | 38.5 | 4.7 | 40 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-28 | 1 | 10 | 37.2 | 26.6 | 34 | 18.4 | 40 | 0 | 17.7 | moderado | 1 |
| 2019-12-29 | 1 | 8 | 37 | 26.6 | 40 | 16.3 | 34.6 | 0.1 | 28.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-30 | 0 | 0 | 37.7 | 26.3 | 31 | 16.2 | 36 | 0 | 31.8 | alto | 0 |
| 2019-12-31 | 0 | 0 | 37.6 | 26.5 | 36 | 15.9 | 35.3 | 0.1 | 30.6 | alto | 0 |
| 2020-01-01 | 0 | 0 | 36.8 | 26.2 | 40 | 14.5 | 39.2 | 1.7 | 40.5 | muy_alto | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 5,275ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 14days
- 16 Dec 2019 – 29 Dec 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- local government areas
- Started on
- 16 Dec
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 172
- in a single hotspot: 77 MW
- Danger at start
- 44
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 202MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
16 Dec29 Dec
29 Dec 2019
How it evolved, day by day
16 Dec
19 Dec
25 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
44km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity
It had gone 40 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 1 Jan.
This area had burned before
41% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 540 ha in 2016, 179 ha in 2017, 1,573 ha in 2018.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Roper Gulf where it started5,232 ha reached on 16 Dec0.0 %
-
42 ha reached on 26 Dec0.0 %
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 2020Built-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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Dec | 41.2 °C | 17 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 17 Dec | 40.5 °C | 23 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 18 Dec | 40.6 °C | 22 % | 41 km/h | 0.1 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 19 Dec | 38.1 °C | 27 % | 44 km/h | 0.2 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 20 Dec | 39.3 °C | 26 % | 41 km/h | 0.5 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 21 Dec | 39.3 °C | 28 % | 44 km/h | 0.2 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 22 Dec | 37.1 °C | 34 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 23 Dec | 38.9 °C | 24 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 24 Dec | 39.9 °C | 20 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 25 Dec | 40.6 °C | 19 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 26 Dec | 42.1 °C | 20 % | 32 km/h | 1.5 mm | Very high 45 |
| 27 Dec | 41.5 °C | 27 % | 38 km/h | 4.7 mm | Very high 40 |
| 28 Dec | 37.2 °C | 34 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 29 Dec | 37.0 °C | 40 % | 35 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 28 |
| 30 Dec after | 37.7 °C | 31 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 31 Dec after | 37.6 °C | 36 % | 35 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 31 |
| 1 Jan after | 36.8 °C | 40 % | 39 km/h | 1.7 mm | Very high 40 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 9 Dec 2019
After · 5 Jan 2020
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · 172Every 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
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 16 December 2019 to 29 December 2019 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 22 December 2019 to 26 December 2019.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,275 hectares (52.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Roper Gulf (5,232 ha, 0.0 %); East Arnhem (42 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 42.1 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, 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.
- Last day with fire: 26 December 2019 → 29 December 2019.
- Start date: 22 December 2019 → 16 December 2019.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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
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 22 December 2019 to 26 December 2019. 172 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.
- Probably a vegetation burn: not counted in the totals.
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.