How long did the Cook fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 July 2018 and 14 August 2018: 21 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 12,804 hectares (128.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Cook (12,860 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 31.8 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 49 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 · 2018-07-25 → 2018-08-14

Cook fire, 25 July 2018 Cook

Out · last detection 15 Aug 2018, 04:14 UTC

The fire started on 25 July 2018 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,804 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 566th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 272 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area: 12,804ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 21days; 25 Jul 2018 – 14 Aug 2018
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 25 Jul; 2018
Heat detections: 383; in a single hotspot: 57 MW
Danger at start: 28; High · FWI index
Energy released: 2.0GW; sum of detected power

Play back 15 Aug 2018

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Jul14 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2526272829303112345679101112131415

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

The weather it burned in

32°high

49km/h · peak gust

26%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

39% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,650 ha in 2016, 656 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,947 ha that had burned before.

47 ha Cook fire, September 2017 9,599 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Cook where it started

12,860 ha reached on 25 Jul

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)
20 Jul	30.2 °C	42 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
21 Jul	30.7 °C	39 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
22 Jul	30.7 °C	39 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
23 Jul	30.6 °C	37 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
24 Jul	30.9 °C	35 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
25 Jul	31.2 °C	36 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
26 Jul	30.6 °C	36 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
27 Jul	30.8 °C	30 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
28 Jul	31.2 °C	26 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
29 Jul	31.5 °C	28 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
30 Jul	31.4 °C	28 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
31 Jul	30.2 °C	38 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
1 Aug	30.8 °C	33 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
2 Aug	31.5 °C	38 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
3 Aug	29.3 °C	50 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
4 Aug	30.3 °C	49 %	42 km/h	0.8 mm	High 24
5 Aug	31.4 °C	42 %	43 km/h	0.7 mm	High 28
6 Aug	31.8 °C	41 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
7 Aug	31.8 °C	41 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
8 Aug	29.8 °C	47 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
9 Aug	30.5 °C	46 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
10 Aug	30.2 °C	38 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
11 Aug	31.0 °C	30 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
12 Aug	30.8 °C	31 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
13 Aug	29.9 °C	33 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
14 Aug	28.6 °C	40 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
15 Aug after	30.3 °C	26 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
16 Aug after	30.6 °C	31 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
17 Aug after	31.5 °C	33 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
18 Aug after	31.8 °C	32 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
19 Aug after	32.8 °C	26 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
20 Aug after	31.4 °C	22 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
21 Aug after	29.5 °C	28 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
22 Aug after	30.7 °C	28 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
23 Aug after	31.5 °C	32 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
24 Aug after	32.1 °C	32 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
25 Aug after	32.0 °C	34 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 18 Jul 2018

After · 21 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 · 383Every 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 25 July 2018 and 14 August 2018: 21 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 12,804 hectares (128.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Cook (12,860 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 31.8 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 49 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 ↗

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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