How long did the Cook fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 August 2018 and 4 September 2018: 28 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 37,253 hectares (372.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Cook (37,849 ha, 0.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 34.2 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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.

AU · Australia · 2018-08-08 → 2018-09-04

Cook fire, 8 August 2018 Cook

Out · last detection 5 Sept 2018, 15:28 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2018 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 28 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 37,253 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 143th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 47 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area: 37,253ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 28days; 8 Aug 2018 – 4 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 8 Aug; 2018
Heat detections: 1,385; in a single hotspot: 74 MW
Danger at start: 37; High · FWI index
Energy released: 5.9GW; sum of detected power

Play back 5 Sept 2018

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug4 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

891011121314151617181920212223242526272829303112345

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

The weather it burned in

34°high

53km/h · peak gust

10%lowest humidity

It had gone 26 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 827 ha in 2016, 98 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 853 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Cook where it started

37,849 ha reached on 8 Aug

0.4 %

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)
4 Aug	31.1 °C	31 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
5 Aug	31.6 °C	31 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
6 Aug	31.8 °C	31 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
7 Aug	29.4 °C	43 %	31 km/h	0.4 mm	High 32
8 Aug	29.8 °C	34 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
9 Aug	30.7 °C	24 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
10 Aug	29.8 °C	21 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
11 Aug	29.7 °C	18 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
12 Aug	29.4 °C	24 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
13 Aug	28.8 °C	25 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
14 Aug	28.4 °C	21 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
15 Aug	28.2 °C	27 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
16 Aug	29.6 °C	25 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
17 Aug	28.5 °C	33 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
18 Aug	32.4 °C	20 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
19 Aug	30.5 °C	13 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
20 Aug	29.9 °C	10 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
21 Aug	27.3 °C	25 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
22 Aug	28.8 °C	19 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
23 Aug	30.0 °C	24 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
24 Aug	30.7 °C	27 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
25 Aug	30.2 °C	30 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
26 Aug	31.4 °C	25 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
27 Aug	31.4 °C	25 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
28 Aug	31.7 °C	24 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
29 Aug	31.4 °C	21 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
30 Aug	31.5 °C	25 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
31 Aug	30.5 °C	26 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
1 Sept	32.8 °C	27 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
2 Sept	34.2 °C	21 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
3 Sept	33.6 °C	16 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
4 Sept	31.8 °C	14 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
5 Sept after	31.0 °C	24 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
6 Sept after	31.5 °C	21 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
7 Sept after	33.3 °C	17 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
8 Sept after	34.1 °C	17 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
9 Sept after	33.8 °C	13 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
10 Sept after	33.0 °C	18 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
11 Sept after	30.5 °C	26 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
12 Sept after	32.4 °C	19 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
13 Sept after	32.7 °C	23 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
14 Sept after	32.5 °C	26 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
15 Sept after	33.7 °C	19 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
16 Sept after	34.5 °C	12 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
17 Sept after	33.8 °C	13 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 62

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 1 Aug 2018

After · 11 Sept 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 · 1,385Every 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 8 August 2018 and 4 September 2018: 28 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 37,253 hectares (372.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Cook (37,849 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 34.2 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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

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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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned