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Cook fire, 16 November 2016 Cook

Out · last detection 11 Dec 2016, 14:57 UTC

The fire started on 16 November 2016 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,193 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 444th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 90 in Australia in 2016, of 427.

Burnt area
15,193ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
26days
16 Nov 2016 – 11 Dec 2016
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
16 Nov
2016
Heat detections
529
in a single hotspot: 67 MW
Danger at start
38
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Dec 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Nov11 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

161718192021222324252628291234567891011

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
48km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.4 mm on 17 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
    15,341 ha reached on 16 Nov
    0.1 %

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)
16 Nov 34.6 °C 23 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
17 Nov 34.5 °C 27 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Nov 34.3 °C 26 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Nov 32.5 °C 31 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 Nov 31.0 °C 45 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
21 Nov 30.8 °C 47 % 41 km/h 0.7 mm High 22
22 Nov 32.6 °C 33 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Nov 31.9 °C 41 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
24 Nov 32.5 °C 42 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
25 Nov 33.0 °C 40 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Nov 32.9 °C 37 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
27 Nov 34.1 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.4 mm High 32
28 Nov 32.4 °C 40 % 38 km/h 0.3 mm High 31
29 Nov 33.2 °C 44 % 34 km/h 2.3 mm Moderate 14
30 Nov 34.1 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.5 mm High 27
1 Dec 33.0 °C 34 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
2 Dec 33.7 °C 34 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
3 Dec 34.3 °C 34 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
4 Dec 33.3 °C 34 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
5 Dec 34.3 °C 35 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Dec 34.0 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Dec 33.2 °C 31 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
8 Dec 32.4 °C 48 % 45 km/h 0.6 mm High 28
9 Dec 32.8 °C 38 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
10 Dec 32.3 °C 44 % 42 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
11 Dec 33.7 °C 35 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
12 Dec after 31.5 °C 46 % 42 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 18
13 Dec after 31.7 °C 48 % 44 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 17
14 Dec after 32.3 °C 48 % 37 km/h 2.4 mm Low 10
15 Dec after 31.5 °C 51 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 20
16 Dec after 32.3 °C 48 % 34 km/h 0.2 mm High 21
17 Dec after 32.3 °C 51 % 33 km/h 2.4 mm Low 10

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Nov 2016
After · 18 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 · 529Every 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 16 November 2016 and 11 December 2016: 26 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 15,193 hectares (151.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cook (15,341 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.6 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 48 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.