How long did the Cook fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 July 2018 and 6 August 2018: 15 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 6,900 hectares (69.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cook (5,289 ha, 0.0 %); Mareeba (1,706 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 31.3 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.

AU · Australia · 2018-07-23 → 2018-08-06

Cook fire, 23 July 2018 Cook, Mareeba

Out · last detection 6 Aug 2018, 03:41 UTC

The fire started on 23 July 2018 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,900 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 1181th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 626 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

The power measured by the satellite is low (27.2 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: 6,900ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 15days; 23 Jul 2018 – 6 Aug 2018
Municipalities hit: 2; local government areas
Started on: 23 Jul; 2018
Heat detections: 189; in a single hotspot: 27 MW
Danger at start: 25; High · FWI index
Energy released: 721MW; sum of detected power

Play back 6 Aug 2018

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jul6 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

232425262728293031123456

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

The weather it burned in

31°high

45km/h · peak gust

20%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

Cook where it started

5,289 ha reached on 20 Jul

0.0 %
Mareeba

1,706 ha reached on 29 Jul

0.0 %

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)
16 Jul	29.7 °C	31 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
17 Jul	29.6 °C	35 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
18 Jul	26.6 °C	51 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
19 Jul	27.5 °C	41 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
20 Jul	29.5 °C	33 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
21 Jul	30.4 °C	29 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
22 Jul	29.1 °C	34 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
23 Jul	29.4 °C	28 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
24 Jul	28.9 °C	29 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
25 Jul	29.2 °C	30 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
26 Jul	28.2 °C	29 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
27 Jul	28.2 °C	25 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
28 Jul	29.4 °C	20 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
29 Jul	29.4 °C	23 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
30 Jul	29.6 °C	24 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
31 Jul	28.5 °C	23 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
1 Aug	28.8 °C	24 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
2 Aug	28.3 °C	36 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
3 Aug	29.6 °C	34 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
4 Aug	29.3 °C	34 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
5 Aug	31.3 °C	32 %	36 km/h	0.1 mm	High 35
6 Aug	30.1 °C	34 %	27 km/h	0.2 mm	High 32
7 Aug after	28.3 °C	46 %	21 km/h	0.8 mm	Moderate 19
8 Aug after	29.5 °C	31 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
9 Aug after	29.8 °C	28 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
10 Aug after	28.4 °C	24 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
11 Aug after	28.7 °C	20 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
12 Aug after	28.7 °C	24 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
13 Aug after	28.5 °C	23 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
14 Aug after	27.0 °C	24 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
15 Aug after	25.9 °C	33 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
16 Aug after	28.7 °C	24 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 16 Jul 2018

After · 13 Aug 2018

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 · 189Every 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 23 July 2018 and 6 August 2018: 15 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 6,900 hectares (69.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cook (5,289 ha, 0.0 %); Mareeba (1,706 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 31.3 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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

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