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Cook fire, 28 September 2016 Cook

Out · last detection 4 Nov 2016, 03:42 UTC

The fire started on 28 September 2016 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 38 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 41,589 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 129th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 18 in Australia in 2016, of 427.

Burnt area
41,589ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
38days
28 Sept 2016 – 4 Nov 2016
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
28 Sept
2016
Heat detections
2,017
in a single hotspot: 133 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
22.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Nov 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Sept4 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

2830123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930311234

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
59km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 41 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.2 mm on 14 Nov.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Cook where it started
    42,023 ha reached on 28 Sept
    0.4 %

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)
28 Sept 33.0 °C 40 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Sept 33.9 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
30 Sept 34.9 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.4 mm High 34
1 Oct 33.8 °C 36 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Oct 34.0 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Oct 34.2 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.3 mm High 33
4 Oct 34.1 °C 39 % 45 km/h 0.2 mm High 38
5 Oct 31.1 °C 55 % 56 km/h 0.9 mm High 26
6 Oct 32.4 °C 29 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Oct 31.5 °C 34 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Oct 32.4 °C 31 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Oct 33.0 °C 35 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Oct 32.3 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Oct 33.6 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Oct 34.9 °C 29 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Oct 33.2 °C 35 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Oct 32.6 °C 38 % 42 km/h 0.5 mm High 37
15 Oct 32.9 °C 40 % 45 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 38
16 Oct 32.8 °C 37 % 50 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 41
17 Oct 34.0 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Oct 34.7 °C 33 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
19 Oct 33.9 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 Oct 34.1 °C 34 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
21 Oct 33.8 °C 37 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
22 Oct 32.8 °C 34 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Oct 34.3 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Oct 32.6 °C 41 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Oct 33.6 °C 37 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Oct 34.6 °C 30 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
27 Oct 34.7 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Oct 35.4 °C 28 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Oct 34.3 °C 35 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Oct 34.0 °C 35 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
31 Oct 33.6 °C 32 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Nov 34.9 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Nov 34.3 °C 40 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
3 Nov 34.4 °C 32 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Nov 35.9 °C 34 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 Nov after 35.5 °C 37 % 40 km/h 0.7 mm High 33
6 Nov after 34.7 °C 40 % 36 km/h 0.5 mm High 32
7 Nov after 35.1 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.2 mm High 34
8 Nov after 35.4 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.3 mm High 35
9 Nov after 35.8 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.9 mm High 30
10 Nov after 36.3 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Nov after 36.4 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
12 Nov after 36.4 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
13 Nov after 35.9 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Nov after 35.3 °C 45 % 36 km/h 2.2 mm Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Sept 2016
After · 11 Nov 2016

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 · 2,017Every 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 Cook fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 September 2016 and 4 November 2016: 38 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 41,589 hectares (415.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cook (42,023 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.9 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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

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
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.

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.