How long did the Cook fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 August 2017 and 25 August 2017: 16 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 11,461 hectares (114.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Cook (11,477 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 32.2 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.

AU · Australia · 2017-08-10 → 2017-08-25

Cook fire, August 2017 Cook

Out · last detection 25 Aug 2017, 16:18 UTC

The fire started on 10 August 2017 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,461 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 644th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 272 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area: 11,461ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 16days; 10 Aug 2017 – 25 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 10 Aug; 2017
Heat detections: 446; in a single hotspot: 92 MW
Danger at start: 20; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 2.4GW; sum of detected power

Play back 25 Aug 2017

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Aug25 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

10111213141516171819202122232425

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

The weather it burned in

32°high

55km/h · peak gust

31%lowest humidity

It had gone 34 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 51 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

Cook where it started

11,477 ha reached on 8 Aug

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)
3 Aug	27.8 °C	65 %	30 km/h	0.3 mm	Moderate 20
4 Aug	28.7 °C	65 %	37 km/h	2.0 mm	Low 9
5 Aug	30.0 °C	54 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
6 Aug	31.9 °C	44 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
7 Aug	32.2 °C	44 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
8 Aug	31.7 °C	44 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
9 Aug	30.5 °C	48 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
10 Aug	29.5 °C	44 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
11 Aug	30.6 °C	41 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
12 Aug	31.5 °C	39 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
13 Aug	31.3 °C	39 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
14 Aug	27.4 °C	62 %	52 km/h	0.3 mm	High 28
15 Aug	28.9 °C	55 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
16 Aug	30.4 °C	45 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
17 Aug	30.2 °C	44 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
18 Aug	31.2 °C	38 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
19 Aug	32.0 °C	31 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
20 Aug	30.3 °C	45 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
21 Aug	28.5 °C	42 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
22 Aug	29.9 °C	39 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
23 Aug	29.9 °C	42 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
24 Aug	30.3 °C	40 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
25 Aug	30.8 °C	40 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
26 Aug after	29.9 °C	43 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
27 Aug after	29.9 °C	43 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
28 Aug after	30.4 °C	39 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
29 Aug after	30.9 °C	39 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
30 Aug after	30.3 °C	41 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
31 Aug after	30.9 °C	44 %	50 km/h	0.1 mm	High 37
1 Sept after	29.4 °C	52 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
2 Sept after	29.0 °C	56 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
3 Sept after	29.9 °C	48 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
4 Sept after	29.9 °C	42 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 3 Aug 2017

After · 1 Sept 2017

Before After

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 · 446Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Australia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Cook fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 August 2017 and 25 August 2017: 16 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 11,461 hectares (114.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Cook (11,477 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 32.2 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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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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.

Where it burned