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Cook fire, 13 November 2017 Cook

Out · last detection 20 Nov 2017, 04:38 UTC

The fire started on 13 November 2017 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,819 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1028th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 491 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

The power measured by the satellite is low (25.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
7,819ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
13 Nov 2017 – 20 Nov 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
13 Nov
2017
Heat detections
262
in a single hotspot: 26 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Nov 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Nov20 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

1314151617181920

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
51km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.8 mm on 30 Nov.

This area had burned before

49% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,866 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Cook where it started
    7,947 ha reached on 12 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)
11 Nov 36.6 °C 23 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Nov 35.6 °C 24 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Nov 35.8 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
14 Nov 36.4 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
15 Nov 37.4 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Nov 38.0 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Nov 38.5 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Nov 38.3 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Nov 37.5 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Nov 38.4 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Nov after 37.1 °C 30 % 40 km/h 2.2 mm High 28
22 Nov after 33.7 °C 39 % 33 km/h 0.4 mm High 25
23 Nov after 38.1 °C 26 % 32 km/h 3.4 mm High 21
24 Nov after 31.5 °C 49 % 24 km/h 9.3 mm Very low 3
25 Nov after 36.3 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
26 Nov after 38.2 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Nov after 38.6 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Nov after 36.8 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
29 Nov after 38.0 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
30 Nov after 38.6 °C 30 % 33 km/h 2.8 mm Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Nov 2017
After · 27 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 · 262Every 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 13 November 2017 and 20 November 2017: 8 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 7,819 hectares (78.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cook (7,947 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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
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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.