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Cook fire, 10 November 2016 Cook, Lockhart River

Out · last detection 24 Dec 2016, 15:53 UTC

The fire started on 10 November 2016 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 45 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 107,293 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

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 35th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 5 in Australia in 2016, of 427.

Burnt area
107,293ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
45days
10 Nov 2016 – 24 Dec 2016
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
10 Nov
2016
Heat detections
5,127
in a single hotspot: 451 MW
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index
Energy released
43.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Dec 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Nov24 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
58km/h · peak gust
32%lowest humidity

It had gone 35 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 25 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
    78,426 ha reached on 7 Nov
    0.7 %
  2. Lockhart River
    29,379 ha reached on 7 Nov
    8.2 %

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)
28 Oct 30.9 °C 45 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
29 Oct 31.2 °C 42 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
30 Oct 30.7 °C 41 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
31 Oct 30.8 °C 40 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
1 Nov 32.6 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
2 Nov 31.2 °C 45 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
3 Nov 31.4 °C 44 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
4 Nov 30.9 °C 55 % 46 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 21
5 Nov 31.5 °C 47 % 38 km/h 0.5 mm High 22
6 Nov 31.2 °C 45 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 23
7 Nov 33.6 °C 34 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
8 Nov 33.3 °C 37 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
9 Nov 33.2 °C 41 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
10 Nov 33.2 °C 43 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Nov 33.8 °C 39 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Nov 34.5 °C 37 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
13 Nov 35.0 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.4 mm High 30
14 Nov 34.3 °C 41 % 33 km/h 2.1 mm Moderate 15
15 Nov 31.7 °C 57 % 45 km/h 2.3 mm Low 9
16 Nov 30.9 °C 46 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
17 Nov 30.4 °C 41 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
18 Nov 29.6 °C 49 % 58 km/h 1.7 mm Moderate 17
19 Nov 30.1 °C 45 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
20 Nov 30.3 °C 42 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
21 Nov 30.5 °C 46 % 45 km/h 0.3 mm High 25
22 Nov 30.0 °C 48 % 43 km/h 0.3 mm High 26
23 Nov 31.0 °C 44 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
24 Nov 32.0 °C 42 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
25 Nov 33.0 °C 37 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
26 Nov 32.0 °C 40 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
27 Nov 31.8 °C 47 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
28 Nov 32.5 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
29 Nov 31.0 °C 49 % 35 km/h 3.1 mm Low 8
30 Nov 31.8 °C 44 % 31 km/h 9.6 mm Very low 4
1 Dec 32.8 °C 44 % 40 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 14
2 Dec 32.5 °C 37 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
3 Dec 30.9 °C 41 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
4 Dec 30.4 °C 46 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
5 Dec 29.8 °C 56 % 49 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 21
6 Dec 31.2 °C 44 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
7 Dec 32.3 °C 35 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
8 Dec 30.7 °C 53 % 44 km/h 0.5 mm High 22
9 Dec 31.9 °C 44 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
10 Dec 31.9 °C 49 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
11 Dec 30.8 °C 49 % 49 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
12 Dec 32.2 °C 43 % 43 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
13 Dec 30.0 °C 58 % 45 km/h 1.9 mm Low 9
14 Dec 32.6 °C 47 % 38 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 17
15 Dec 31.7 °C 54 % 38 km/h 2.9 mm Low 5
16 Dec 33.0 °C 47 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
17 Dec 31.6 °C 49 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 16
18 Dec 32.1 °C 53 % 35 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 13
19 Dec 33.2 °C 39 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
20 Dec 31.1 °C 52 % 44 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 17
21 Dec 29.9 °C 59 % 44 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 13
22 Dec 31.3 °C 52 % 39 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 13
23 Dec 30.2 °C 60 % 46 km/h 2.0 mm Low 8
24 Dec 32.1 °C 47 % 41 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 17
25 Dec after 30.7 °C 56 % 39 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 13

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Nov 2016
After · 31 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 · 5,127Every 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 10 November 2016 and 24 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 107,293 hectares (1,072.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cook (78,426 ha, 0.7 %); Lockhart River (29,379 ha, 8.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.0 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, class 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.

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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.