How long did the Cook fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 October 2016 and 22 October 2016: 19 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 32,998 hectares (330.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Cook (33,453 ha, 0.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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 · 2016-10-04 → 2016-10-22

Cook fire, 4 October 2016 Cook

Out · last detection 22 Oct 2016, 15:35 UTC

The fire started on 4 October 2016 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 32,998 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 169th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 30 in Australia in 2016, of 427.

Burnt area: 32,998ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 19days; 4 Oct 2016 – 22 Oct 2016
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 4 Oct; 2016
Heat detections: 992; in a single hotspot: 96 MW
Danger at start: 42; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 6.7GW; sum of detected power

Play back 22 Oct 2016

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Oct22 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

4678910111213141516171819202122

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

The weather it burned in

37°high

52km/h · peak gust

21%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

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 started

33,453 ha reached on 4 Oct

0.3 %

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)
4 Oct	35.5 °C	34 %	40 km/h	0.3 mm	Very high 42
5 Oct	29.9 °C	56 %	42 km/h	10.9 mm	Low 6
6 Oct	32.0 °C	31 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
7 Oct	31.7 °C	33 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
8 Oct	32.9 °C	28 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
9 Oct	34.4 °C	26 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
10 Oct	34.0 °C	25 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
11 Oct	35.3 °C	25 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
12 Oct	36.2 °C	21 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
13 Oct	34.4 °C	27 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
14 Oct	33.8 °C	32 %	41 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 40
15 Oct	33.7 °C	33 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
16 Oct	34.2 °C	29 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
17 Oct	35.1 °C	27 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
18 Oct	36.1 °C	27 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
19 Oct	36.1 °C	23 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
20 Oct	36.2 °C	26 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
21 Oct	35.4 °C	29 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
22 Oct	35.0 °C	26 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
23 Oct after	35.4 °C	25 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
24 Oct after	34.7 °C	35 %	41 km/h	0.5 mm	Very high 40
25 Oct after	35.4 °C	29 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
26 Oct after	36.9 °C	21 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
27 Oct after	36.9 °C	22 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
28 Oct after	37.2 °C	16 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
29 Oct after	36.2 °C	27 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
30 Oct after	36.4 °C	24 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
31 Oct after	36.0 °C	23 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
1 Nov after	36.9 °C	23 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
2 Nov after	37.5 °C	27 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
3 Nov after	36.2 °C	26 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
4 Nov after	37.6 °C	25 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
5 Nov after	37.0 °C	31 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 27 Sept 2016

After · 29 Oct 2016

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 · 992Every 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 Cook fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 October 2016 and 22 October 2016: 19 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 32,998 hectares (330.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Cook (33,453 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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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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