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Cook fire, 15 November 2016 Cook

Out · last detection 24 Dec 2016, 03:04 UTC

The fire started on 15 November 2016 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 40 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 120,009 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 25th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 3 in Australia in 2016, of 427.

Burnt area
120,009ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
40days
15 Nov 2016 – 24 Dec 2016
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
15 Nov
2016
Heat detections
6,554
in a single hotspot: 266 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
50.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Dec 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 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

38°high
68km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 33 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 23.2 mm on 31 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
    121,712 ha reached on 15 Nov
    1.1 %

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)
8 Nov 35.0 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
9 Nov 35.1 °C 38 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
10 Nov 36.3 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Nov 37.1 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Nov 38.2 °C 27 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
13 Nov 38.3 °C 28 % 36 km/h 2.7 mm High 24
14 Nov 33.7 °C 47 % 42 km/h 2.1 mm Moderate 12
15 Nov 33.3 °C 24 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Nov 31.9 °C 31 % 63 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
17 Nov 31.3 °C 39 % 68 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Nov 31.0 °C 40 % 63 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Nov 30.9 °C 41 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 Nov 30.6 °C 49 % 54 km/h 0.8 mm High 23
21 Nov 30.2 °C 52 % 55 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 18
22 Nov 32.1 °C 39 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
23 Nov 32.5 °C 43 % 46 km/h 0.4 mm High 26
24 Nov 35.1 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Nov 34.6 °C 34 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Nov 32.6 °C 37 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Nov 33.7 °C 38 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Nov 33.4 °C 36 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Nov 33.4 °C 42 % 39 km/h 0.4 mm High 31
30 Nov 35.7 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
1 Dec 35.7 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Dec 36.4 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Dec 34.5 °C 27 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Dec 32.0 °C 40 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Dec 31.9 °C 42 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
6 Dec 32.5 °C 38 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Dec 34.0 °C 34 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Dec 33.2 °C 45 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Dec 35.3 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Dec 32.5 °C 46 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Dec 32.6 °C 40 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Dec 33.1 °C 46 % 51 km/h 0.5 mm High 34
13 Dec 31.4 °C 54 % 52 km/h 1.7 mm Moderate 16
14 Dec 33.2 °C 48 % 51 km/h 0.8 mm High 24
15 Dec 33.8 °C 41 % 47 km/h 0.3 mm High 29
16 Dec 34.3 °C 46 % 43 km/h 0.4 mm High 28
17 Dec 32.2 °C 56 % 40 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 15
18 Dec 33.5 °C 45 % 41 km/h 0.6 mm High 24
19 Dec 32.9 °C 37 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
20 Dec 33.1 °C 41 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Dec 32.5 °C 44 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
22 Dec 33.7 °C 38 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Dec 32.5 °C 42 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Dec 32.5 °C 49 % 51 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
25 Dec after 32.0 °C 46 % 42 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 20
26 Dec after 30.1 °C 52 % 36 km/h 0.3 mm High 21
27 Dec after 33.5 °C 45 % 35 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 19
28 Dec after 31.8 °C 53 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 21
29 Dec after 29.2 °C 69 % 39 km/h 10.3 mm Very low 2
30 Dec after 30.4 °C 59 % 35 km/h 0.7 mm Low 7
31 Dec after 31.5 °C 63 % 33 km/h 23.2 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 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 · 6,554Every 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 15 November 2016 and 24 December 2016: 40 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 120,009 hectares (1,200.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cook (121,712 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 68 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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.

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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.