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Cook fire, 27 October 2016 Cook, Lockhart River

Out · last detection 8 Nov 2016, 04:08 UTC

The fire started on 27 October 2016 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,049 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 452th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 93 in Australia in 2016, of 427.

Burnt area
15,049ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
27 Oct 2016 – 8 Nov 2016
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
27 Oct
2016
Heat detections
542
in a single hotspot: 62 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Nov 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Oct8 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

272829303112345678

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
50km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 15 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
    13,435 ha reached on 27 Oct
    0.1 %
  2. Lockhart River
    1,657 ha reached on 27 Oct
    0.5 %

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)
27 Oct 34.2 °C 37 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 Oct 34.9 °C 37 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Oct 34.7 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
30 Oct 33.8 °C 34 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
31 Oct 34.5 °C 33 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
1 Nov 36.2 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Nov 34.5 °C 37 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Nov 34.7 °C 39 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Nov 34.5 °C 45 % 44 km/h 0.2 mm High 37
5 Nov 34.0 °C 42 % 37 km/h 0.3 mm High 31
6 Nov 34.5 °C 39 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Nov 35.2 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
8 Nov 35.7 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm High 37
9 Nov after 35.5 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Nov after 36.6 °C 35 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Nov after 36.0 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
12 Nov after 37.1 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
13 Nov after 36.7 °C 32 % 25 km/h 1.6 mm High 25
14 Nov after 36.6 °C 38 % 28 km/h 1.8 mm Moderate 19
15 Nov after 35.5 °C 42 % 43 km/h 1.7 mm Moderate 21

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Oct 2016
After · 15 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 · 542Every 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 27 October 2016 and 8 November 2016: 13 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 15,049 hectares (150.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cook (13,435 ha, 0.1 %); Lockhart River (1,657 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.