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Cook fire, 30 September 2018 Cook

Out · last detection 29 Oct 2018, 04:08 UTC

The fire started on 30 September 2018 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 30 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 54,407 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 88th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 33 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Cook · 2026Cook · 2026Cook · 2023Cook · 2025

Burnt area
54,407ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
30days
30 Sept 2018 – 29 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
30 Sept
2018
Heat detections
1,801
in a single hotspot: 252 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
603MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

29 Oct 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Sept29 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

30 Sept 2018 · 124 MW · 12 1 Oct 2018 · 147 MW · 28 2 Oct 2018 · 617 MW · 75 3 Oct 2018 · 1,338 MW · 111 4 Oct 2018 · 370 MW · 65 5 Oct 2018 · 618 MW · 70 6 Oct 2018 · 242 MW · 19 7 Oct 2018 · 1,302 MW · 51 8 Oct 2018 · 2,278 MW · 107 9 Oct 2018 · 1,374 MW · 77 10 Oct 2018 · 1,782 MW · 149 11 Oct 2018 · 1,464 MW · 158 12 Oct 2018 · 1,072 MW · 156 13 Oct 2018 · 632 MW · 68 14 Oct 2018 · 514 MW · 41 15 Oct 2018 · 91 MW · 22 16 Oct 2018 · 197 MW · 36 17 Oct 2018 · 903 MW · 102 18 Oct 2018 · 354 MW · 79 19 Oct 2018 · 219 MW · 28 20 Oct 2018 · 702 MW · 58 21 Oct 2018 · 361 MW · 50 22 Oct 2018 · 56 MW · 22 23 Oct 2018 · 368 MW · 34 24 Oct 2018 · 461 MW · 89 25 Oct 2018 · 171 MW · 27 26 Oct 2018 · 8 MW · 6 27 Oct 2018 · 115 MW · 22 28 Oct 2018 · 87 MW · 22 29 Oct 2018 · 121 MW · 11
30 Sept 5 Oct 8 Oct 10 Oct 15 Oct 20 Oct 25 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
60km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

22% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,184 ha in 2016, 8,397 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 11,753 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 34% of the area of London (544 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Cook where it started
    54,723 ha reached on 27 Sept
    0.5 %

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)
27 Sept 30.6 °C 30 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Sept 29.6 °C 29 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Sept 29.9 °C 30 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
30 Sept 30.4 °C 32 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Oct 30.7 °C 38 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Oct 30.6 °C 34 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
3 Oct 30.5 °C 37 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Oct 32.9 °C 28 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Oct 34.8 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Oct 34.7 °C 25 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
7 Oct 34.0 °C 27 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
8 Oct 33.0 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 Oct 32.2 °C 35 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Oct 34.2 °C 24 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Oct 33.9 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Oct 36.0 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Oct 35.8 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 43
14 Oct 33.1 °C 41 % 44 km/h 1.3 mm High 26
15 Oct 33.1 °C 43 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
16 Oct 33.5 °C 32 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
17 Oct 34.8 °C 24 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
18 Oct 34.7 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Oct 34.9 °C 30 % 46 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 46
20 Oct 34.0 °C 33 % 43 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 45
21 Oct 36.3 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Oct 35.9 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Oct 34.7 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Oct 33.9 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Oct 33.8 °C 27 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
26 Oct 32.3 °C 25 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
27 Oct 34.6 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Oct 36.2 °C 28 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Oct 35.2 °C 35 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
30 Oct after 33.2 °C 46 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
31 Oct after 33.3 °C 35 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Nov after 32.9 °C 42 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Nov after 33.1 °C 39 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
3 Nov after 33.3 °C 38 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Nov after 33.1 °C 44 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Nov after 34.0 °C 36 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
6 Nov after 34.7 °C 31 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Nov after 34.5 °C 35 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Nov after 35.6 °C 29 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Nov after 35.3 °C 32 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 Nov after 33.4 °C 35 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Sept 2018
After · 5 Nov 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 · 1,801Every 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 30 September 2018 and 29 October 2018: 30 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 54,407 hectares (544.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cook (54,723 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 1,801 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.