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Cook fire, 5 November 2016 Cook

Out · last detection 16 Nov 2016, 16:06 UTC

The fire started on 5 November 2016 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 18,008 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 351th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 72 in Australia in 2016, of 427.

Burnt area
18,008ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
5 Nov 2016 – 16 Nov 2016
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
5 Nov
2016
Heat detections
561
in a single hotspot: 105 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Nov 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Nov16 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

678910111213141516

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
47km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 26 days 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

  1. Cook where it started
    18,195 ha reached on 3 Nov
    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)
1 Nov 34.9 °C 33 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
2 Nov 36.4 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Nov 36.0 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Nov 36.3 °C 35 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Nov 35.6 °C 39 % 45 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 39
6 Nov 34.6 °C 42 % 40 km/h 0.8 mm High 28
7 Nov 34.0 °C 43 % 42 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
8 Nov 34.3 °C 39 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Nov 34.6 °C 45 % 42 km/h 0.9 mm High 28
10 Nov 36.2 °C 38 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Nov 34.6 °C 47 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
12 Nov 34.7 °C 45 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Nov 34.2 °C 48 % 44 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
14 Nov 35.9 °C 42 % 44 km/h 8.3 mm Low 10
15 Nov 37.2 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Nov 37.0 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
17 Nov after 36.6 °C 23 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
18 Nov after 36.3 °C 25 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
19 Nov after 35.6 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Nov after 34.8 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
21 Nov after 33.4 °C 42 % 38 km/h 0.6 mm High 29
22 Nov after 36.1 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Nov after 36.4 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Nov after 35.6 °C 35 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Nov after 35.4 °C 37 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Nov after 35.7 °C 32 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Oct 2016
After · 23 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 · 561Every 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 5 November 2016 and 16 November 2016: 12 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 18,008 hectares (180.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cook (18,195 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 47 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.