How long did the Cook fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 July 2018 and 19 August 2018: 27 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 19,660 hectares (196.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Cook (19,675 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 27.7 °C, humidity dropped to 45 % and gusts hit 56 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.

AU · Australia · 2018-07-24 → 2018-08-19

Cook fire, 24 July 2018 Cook

Out · last detection 19 Aug 2018, 15:46 UTC

The fire started on 24 July 2018 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 19,660 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 319th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 150 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area: 19,660ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 27days; 24 Jul 2018 – 19 Aug 2018
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 24 Jul; 2018
Heat detections: 753; in a single hotspot: 60 MW
Danger at start: 23; High · FWI index
Energy released: 3.2GW; sum of detected power

Play back 19 Aug 2018

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Jul19 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

242526272829303112345689111213141516171819

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

The weather it burned in

28°high

56km/h · peak gust

45%lowest humidity

It had gone 23 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

19,675 ha reached on 24 Jul

0.2 %

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)
24 Jul	26.8 °C	54 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
25 Jul	25.8 °C	68 %	45 km/h	0.3 mm	Moderate 21
26 Jul	26.3 °C	63 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
27 Jul	25.8 °C	56 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
28 Jul	26.2 °C	54 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
29 Jul	26.3 °C	57 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
30 Jul	26.5 °C	56 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
31 Jul	26.1 °C	58 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
1 Aug	26.8 °C	57 %	46 km/h	0.1 mm	High 25
2 Aug	26.8 °C	63 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
3 Aug	26.3 °C	69 %	48 km/h	0.3 mm	High 23
4 Aug	26.9 °C	69 %	48 km/h	0.2 mm	High 22
5 Aug	26.2 °C	67 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
6 Aug	26.8 °C	65 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
7 Aug	27.7 °C	64 %	37 km/h	0.4 mm	Moderate 19
8 Aug	26.2 °C	71 %	46 km/h	0.8 mm	Moderate 16
9 Aug	25.9 °C	73 %	50 km/h	1.7 mm	Low 11
10 Aug	25.7 °C	58 %	54 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 20
11 Aug	26.5 °C	54 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 21
12 Aug	26.3 °C	55 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
13 Aug	26.4 °C	53 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
14 Aug	25.0 °C	63 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
15 Aug	26.2 °C	51 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
16 Aug	25.8 °C	61 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
17 Aug	26.6 °C	63 %	40 km/h	0.4 mm	High 23
18 Aug	26.5 °C	60 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
19 Aug	27.7 °C	45 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
20 Aug after	26.8 °C	43 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
21 Aug after	24.8 °C	51 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
22 Aug after	26.3 °C	49 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
23 Aug after	26.4 °C	57 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
24 Aug after	26.9 °C	54 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
25 Aug after	26.6 °C	58 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
26 Aug after	27.7 °C	57 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
27 Aug after	27.1 °C	59 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
28 Aug after	27.0 °C	58 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
29 Aug after	27.1 °C	52 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 17 Jul 2018

After · 26 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 · 753Every 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 24 July 2018 and 19 August 2018: 27 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 19,660 hectares (196.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Cook (19,675 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 27.7 °C, humidity dropped to 45 % and gusts hit 56 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

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