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Cook fire, 29 October 2016 Cook

Out · last detection 11 Dec 2016, 03:50 UTC

The fire started on 29 October 2016 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 45 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 74,396 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

It is the 60th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 10 in Australia in 2016, of 427.

Burnt area
74,396ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
45days
29 Oct 2016 – 12 Dec 2016
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
29 Oct
2016
Heat detections
3,172
in a single hotspot: 373 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
30.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Dec 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Oct12 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

29303112345678910111213151617181920212223242526272829301234567891011

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
55km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.1 mm on 14 Dec.

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
    74,259 ha reached on 29 Oct
    0.7 %

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)
29 Oct 35.0 °C 34 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Oct 34.1 °C 36 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
31 Oct 34.8 °C 30 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Nov 36.3 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.1 mm High 38
2 Nov 35.2 °C 36 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 Nov 34.0 °C 42 % 51 km/h 0.6 mm High 34
4 Nov 34.2 °C 47 % 46 km/h 2.1 mm Moderate 20
5 Nov 34.7 °C 40 % 40 km/h 0.3 mm High 27
6 Nov 36.5 °C 34 % 33 km/h 0.4 mm High 31
7 Nov 36.6 °C 33 % 24 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
8 Nov 36.0 °C 32 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
9 Nov 36.9 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
10 Nov 37.8 °C 31 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
11 Nov 37.6 °C 31 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
12 Nov 37.8 °C 30 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Nov 37.9 °C 30 % 27 km/h 1.3 mm High 28
14 Nov 36.3 °C 41 % 27 km/h 3.5 mm Low 10
15 Nov 35.6 °C 40 % 37 km/h 0.6 mm High 24
16 Nov 33.8 °C 50 % 49 km/h 2.2 mm Moderate 16
17 Nov 33.8 °C 38 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
18 Nov 33.1 °C 41 % 55 km/h 1.2 mm High 26
19 Nov 33.3 °C 40 % 46 km/h 0.4 mm High 29
20 Nov 34.8 °C 34 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
21 Nov 34.3 °C 39 % 41 km/h 0.4 mm High 31
22 Nov 33.6 °C 42 % 45 km/h 0.3 mm High 34
23 Nov 34.3 °C 37 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
24 Nov 35.2 °C 35 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
25 Nov 37.2 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
26 Nov 37.0 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.5 mm High 31
27 Nov 37.1 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.7 mm High 28
28 Nov 37.2 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
29 Nov 34.7 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.6 mm High 28
30 Nov 35.6 °C 38 % 31 km/h 1.1 mm High 23
1 Dec 37.6 °C 29 % 29 km/h 0.7 mm High 31
2 Dec 37.4 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
3 Dec 35.0 °C 33 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Dec 33.6 °C 43 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Dec 35.1 °C 41 % 49 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 39
6 Dec 36.4 °C 32 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
7 Dec 37.1 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Dec 36.8 °C 32 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Dec 35.7 °C 35 % 43 km/h 1.1 mm High 30
10 Dec 35.0 °C 42 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Dec 33.5 °C 47 % 44 km/h 1.8 mm Moderate 20
12 Dec 34.5 °C 42 % 45 km/h 0.3 mm High 29
13 Dec after 34.7 °C 44 % 41 km/h 0.7 mm High 28
14 Dec after 34.9 °C 49 % 35 km/h 8.1 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Oct 2016
After · 19 Dec 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 · 3,172Every 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 29 October 2016 and 12 December 2016: 45 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 74,396 hectares (744.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cook (74,259 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.9 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.