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Cook fire, 24 September 2018 Cook

Out · last detection 4 Oct 2018, 03:36 UTC

The fire started on 24 September 2018 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,040 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1149th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 609 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
7,040ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
24 Sept 2018 – 3 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
24 Sept
2018
Heat detections
374
in a single hotspot: 41 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Oct 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Sept3 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

242526272829301234

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
60km/h · peak gust
32%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

14% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 777 ha in 2016, 202 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Cook where it started
    7,095 ha reached on 24 Sept
    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)
24 Sept 28.1 °C 43 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Sept 29.4 °C 36 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Sept 28.8 °C 42 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Sept 29.0 °C 38 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Sept 28.1 °C 37 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Sept 28.0 °C 39 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Sept 28.7 °C 32 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Oct 28.1 °C 46 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Oct 29.8 °C 37 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Oct 28.6 °C 45 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Oct after 29.2 °C 37 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
5 Oct after 32.2 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
6 Oct after 31.8 °C 37 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Oct after 30.6 °C 38 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Oct after 29.9 °C 42 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Oct after 29.5 °C 45 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Oct after 31.5 °C 32 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
11 Oct after 30.3 °C 40 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
12 Oct after 32.5 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Oct after 31.7 °C 49 % 30 km/h 0.5 mm High 28
14 Oct after 30.7 °C 56 % 41 km/h 0.6 mm High 25

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Sept 2018
After · 10 Oct 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 · 374Every 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 24 September 2018 and 3 October 2018: 10 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 7,040 hectares (70.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cook (7,095 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.8 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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

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
What do you think is wrong?

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.