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Cook fire, 25 October 2016 Cook

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

The fire started on 25 October 2016 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 17,285 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 372th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 76 in Australia in 2016, of 427.

Burnt area
17,285ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
25 Oct 2016 – 3 Nov 2016
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
25 Oct
2016
Heat detections
478
in a single hotspot: 238 MW
Danger at start
38
High · FWI index
Energy released
6.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Nov 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Oct3 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

252627282930311234

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
45km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 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
    17,464 ha reached on 24 Oct
    0.2 %

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)
24 Oct 34.3 °C 37 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
25 Oct 35.9 °C 32 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Oct 37.1 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
27 Oct 36.4 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Oct 36.7 °C 27 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Oct 36.4 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Oct 36.3 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
31 Oct 34.9 °C 34 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Nov 35.1 °C 33 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Nov 36.7 °C 34 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
3 Nov 36.1 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Nov after 36.5 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Nov after 35.6 °C 39 % 45 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 42
6 Nov after 35.1 °C 41 % 39 km/h 0.5 mm High 36
7 Nov after 34.1 °C 42 % 40 km/h 0.4 mm High 36
8 Nov after 34.8 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
9 Nov after 35.2 °C 43 % 39 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
10 Nov after 37.1 °C 36 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Nov after 35.4 °C 44 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
12 Nov after 36.0 °C 40 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
13 Nov after 34.9 °C 44 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Nov after 36.6 °C 39 % 42 km/h 1.6 mm High 26

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Oct 2016
After · 10 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 · 478Every 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 25 October 2016 and 3 November 2016: 10 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 17,285 hectares (172.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cook (17,464 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 45 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.