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Cook fire, 31 October 2017 Cook

Out · last detection 19 Nov 2017, 16:06 UTC

The fire started on 31 October 2017 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,999 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 680th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 288 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
10,999ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
31 Oct 2017 – 19 Nov 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
31 Oct
2017
Heat detections
376
in a single hotspot: 139 MW
Danger at start
15
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
2.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Nov 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Oct19 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

311345678101112141516171819

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
62km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.5 mm on 21 Nov.

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
    11,148 ha reached on 29 Oct
    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)
27 Oct 34.6 °C 31 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
28 Oct 35.8 °C 29 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
29 Oct 35.9 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
30 Oct 35.8 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
31 Oct 34.9 °C 38 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
1 Nov 34.7 °C 43 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 18
2 Nov 33.8 °C 45 % 37 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 14
3 Nov 33.8 °C 41 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 17
4 Nov 34.2 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
5 Nov 33.1 °C 38 % 49 km/h 0.4 mm High 26
6 Nov 33.6 °C 33 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
7 Nov 34.7 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
8 Nov 33.3 °C 52 % 46 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 13
9 Nov 32.4 °C 49 % 62 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 21
10 Nov 30.3 °C 48 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
11 Nov 31.8 °C 39 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
12 Nov 31.9 °C 34 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
13 Nov 31.2 °C 43 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Nov 31.4 °C 47 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
15 Nov 33.8 °C 36 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
16 Nov 34.0 °C 35 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
17 Nov 34.0 °C 35 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
18 Nov 35.2 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
19 Nov 34.1 °C 37 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
20 Nov after 32.7 °C 46 % 39 km/h 0.2 mm High 25
21 Nov after 32.5 °C 46 % 37 km/h 5.5 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Oct 2017
After · 26 Nov 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 · 376Every 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 31 October 2017 and 19 November 2017: 20 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 10,999 hectares (110.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cook (11,148 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.9 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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
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.