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Cook fire, 15 December 2017 Cook

Out · last detection 2 Jan 2018, 04:32 UTC

The fire started on 15 December 2017 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 48,841 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 109th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 30 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
48,841ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
19days
15 Dec 2017 – 2 Jan 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
15 Dec
2017
Heat detections
1,889
in a single hotspot: 284 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
14.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Jan 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Dec2 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

151617181920212223242526272829303112

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
58km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.8 mm on 3 Jan.

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
    49,600 ha reached on 10 Dec
    0.5 %

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)
10 Dec 37.9 °C 21 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Dec 37.9 °C 19 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Dec 36.4 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Dec 35.5 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 Dec 36.7 °C 18 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Dec 37.4 °C 21 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Dec 37.9 °C 18 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Dec 37.7 °C 21 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
18 Dec 37.8 °C 16 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Dec 38.0 °C 20 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Dec 37.1 °C 24 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Dec 35.8 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
22 Dec 38.1 °C 17 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Dec 36.1 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 38
24 Dec 37.4 °C 15 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
25 Dec 37.6 °C 20 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
26 Dec 36.6 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Dec 38.7 °C 17 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Dec 37.4 °C 24 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Dec 38.5 °C 25 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
30 Dec 39.4 °C 17 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
31 Dec 38.0 °C 24 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
1 Jan 39.2 °C 24 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Jan 38.4 °C 31 % 51 km/h 1.9 mm High 27
3 Jan after 37.3 °C 38 % 32 km/h 11.8 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Dec 2017
After · 9 Jan 2018

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 · 1,889Every 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 15 December 2017 and 2 January 2018: 19 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 48,841 hectares (488.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cook (49,600 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.4 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, class Extreme.
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.