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Cook fire, 20 September 2017 Cook

Out · last detection 6 Oct 2017, 03:42 UTC

The fire started on 20 September 2017 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,334 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 955th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 447 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
8,334ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
20 Sept 2017 – 5 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
20 Sept
2017
Heat detections
301
in a single hotspot: 117 MW
Danger at start
21
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
4.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Oct 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Sept5 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

2021222324252627282930123456

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
60km/h · peak gust
36%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 233 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Cook where it started
    8,445 ha reached on 20 Sept
    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)
20 Sept 30.3 °C 49 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
21 Sept 31.4 °C 41 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
22 Sept 31.0 °C 45 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
23 Sept 31.2 °C 37 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
24 Sept 30.6 °C 37 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
25 Sept 32.3 °C 40 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
26 Sept 33.3 °C 37 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
27 Sept 32.2 °C 42 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
28 Sept 32.0 °C 37 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Sept 32.6 °C 40 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
30 Sept 33.2 °C 41 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
1 Oct 34.1 °C 36 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
2 Oct 32.2 °C 44 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Oct 32.3 °C 41 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
4 Oct 32.4 °C 47 % 56 km/h 0.6 mm High 28
5 Oct 32.8 °C 45 % 55 km/h 0.4 mm High 29
6 Oct after 32.1 °C 46 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
7 Oct after 32.1 °C 40 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
8 Oct after 32.1 °C 41 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Oct after 31.7 °C 39 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Oct after 32.1 °C 34 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Oct after 31.8 °C 42 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
12 Oct after 32.6 °C 44 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
13 Oct after 31.7 °C 50 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Oct after 33.0 °C 40 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Oct after 32.8 °C 42 % 43 km/h 0.5 mm High 30
16 Oct after 32.2 °C 44 % 44 km/h 0.9 mm High 24

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Sept 2017
After · 12 Oct 2017

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 · 301Every 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 20 September 2017 and 5 October 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 8,334 hectares (83.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cook (8,445 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.1 °C, humidity dropped to 36 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, 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.

Report an error
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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.