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Aurukun fire, September 2023 Cook, Aurukun

Out · last detection 28 Sept 2023, 16:00 UTC

The fire started on 10 September 2023 in Aurukun, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,732 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 784th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1742 with a page). Number 578 in Australia in 2023, of 1237.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Aurukun · 2016Aurukun · 2022Cook · 2018Aurukun · 2020

Burnt area
9,732ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
19days
10 Sept 2023 – 28 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
10 Sept
2023
Heat detections
389
in a single hotspot: 224 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
332MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Sept28 Sept
28 Sept 2023

How it evolved, day by day

10 Sept 2023 · 301 MW · 11 11 Sept 2023 · 221 MW · 22 12 Sept 2023 · 38 MW · 8 13 Sept 2023 · 188 MW · 37 14 Sept 2023 · 208 MW · 46 15 Sept 2023 · 166 MW · 34 16 Sept 2023 · 32 MW · 7 17 Sept 2023 · 15 MW · 6 18 Sept 2023 · 19 MW · 4 19 Sept 2023 · 31 MW · 6 20 Sept 2023 · 55 MW · 6 21 Sept 2023 · 143 MW · 6 22 Sept 2023 · 30 MW · 3 23 Sept 2023 · 158 MW · 43 24 Sept 2023 · 487 MW · 36 25 Sept 2023 · 3,573 MW · 82 26 Sept 2023 · 614 MW · 26 27 Sept 2023 · 19 MW · 4 28 Sept 2023 · 2 MW · 2
10 Sept 13 Sept 16 Sept 19 Sept 22 Sept 25 Sept 28 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

35°high
51km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 4 Oct.

This area had burned before

98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,997 ha in 2016, 2,851 ha in 2017, 6,103 ha in 2018, 4,651 ha in 2019, 1,933 ha in 2020, 1,842 ha in 2021, 5,204 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,492 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 6.1% of the area of London (97 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. Cook
    6,460 ha reached on 12 Sept
    0.1 %
  2. Aurukun where it started
    3,315 ha reached on 10 Sept
    0.4 %

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 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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)
10 Sept 33.3 °C 37 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 Sept 33.0 °C 33 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Sept 32.0 °C 31 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Sept 32.3 °C 34 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 Sept 31.7 °C 33 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Sept 30.9 °C 33 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Sept 32.0 °C 30 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Sept 29.1 °C 45 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Sept 31.4 °C 37 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
19 Sept 33.4 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Sept 32.9 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
21 Sept 33.1 °C 40 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
22 Sept 35.2 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Sept 33.5 °C 28 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Sept 33.2 °C 34 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
25 Sept 32.8 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Sept 33.2 °C 32 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
27 Sept 33.4 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Sept 33.0 °C 35 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
29 Sept after 32.9 °C 38 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Sept after 33.0 °C 35 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Oct after 33.4 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
2 Oct after 32.1 °C 44 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
3 Oct after 33.5 °C 39 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
4 Oct after 35.0 °C 33 % 27 km/h 1.0 mm High 29

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Sept 2023
After · 5 Oct 2023

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 30 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak18 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1029 µg/m³
Optical depth0.40
9101112131415161718192021222324252627282930
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 389Every 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 Aurukun fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 10 September 2023 to 28 September 2023 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 September 2023 to 27 September 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 9,732 hectares (97.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cook (6,460 ha, 0.1 %); Aurukun (3,315 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

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
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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 11 September 2023 to 27 September 2023. 389 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 2025, 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.