Cook fire, 3 September 2016 Cook
The fire started on 3 September 2016 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,557 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 1523th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 365 in Australia in 2016, of 427.
- Burnt area
- 5,557ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 3 Sept 2016 – 6 Sept 2016
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 3 Sept
- 2016
- Heat detections
- 192
- in a single hotspot: 77 MW
- Danger at start
- 21
- Moderate · FWI index
- Energy released
- 1.4GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 36 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 15 Sept.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
Cook where it started5,602 ha reached on 2 Sept0.0 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Sept | 30.1 °C | 54 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 4 Sept | 29.6 °C | 57 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 5 Sept | 28.0 °C | 63 % | 51 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 26 |
| 6 Sept | 29.3 °C | 53 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 7 Sept after | 29.0 °C | 54 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 8 Sept after | 29.6 °C | 54 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 9 Sept after | 29.7 °C | 56 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 10 Sept after | 30.2 °C | 57 % | 38 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 23 |
| 11 Sept after | 29.7 °C | 53 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 12 Sept after | 29.3 °C | 58 % | 40 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 25 |
| 13 Sept after | 29.5 °C | 58 % | 46 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 27 |
| 14 Sept after | 29.6 °C | 57 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 15 Sept after | 29.3 °C | 66 % | 40 km/h | 1.1 mm | Moderate 14 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 192Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 11,217 haCook16 August 2019 · 18 days · 5 km away
- 17,076 haCook8 October 2021 · 37 days · 11 km away
- 25,979 haCook19 September 2019 · 35 days · 14 km away
- 10,564 haCook1 November 2021 · 6 days · 17 km away
- 49,450 haCook30 September 2023 · 45 days · 18 km away
- 12,285 haCook15 October 2016 · 21 days · 20 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Cook fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 September 2016 and 6 September 2016: 4 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,557 hectares (55.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Cook (5,602 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 30.1 °C, humidity dropped to 53 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, class 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
Satellite cross-check
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
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.