Cook fire, 20 September 2018 Cook
The fire started on 20 September 2018 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 93,971 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 42th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 8 in Australia in 2018, of 923.
- Burnt area
- 93,971ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 22days
- 20 Sept 2018 – 11 Oct 2018
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 20 Sept
- 2018
- Heat detections
- 2,996
- in a single hotspot: 208 MW
- Danger at start
- 58
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 27.2GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
40% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 37,322 ha in 2016, 966 ha in 2017.
- 9,478 ha Cook fire, October 2016 15,010 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,086 ha Cook fire, October 2016 6,971 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,781 ha Cook fire, October 2016 6,421 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,677 ha Cook fire, October 2016 7,443 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,250 ha Cook fire, October 2016 31,823 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 198 ha Cook fire, November 2016 6,087 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Cook where it started95,124 ha reached on 20 Sept0.9 %
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 Sept | 35.6 °C | 16 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 21 Sept | 35.6 °C | 21 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 22 Sept | 35.1 °C | 20 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 23 Sept | 33.7 °C | 24 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 24 Sept | 33.5 °C | 22 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 25 Sept | 33.9 °C | 19 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 26 Sept | 34.1 °C | 19 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 27 Sept | 33.3 °C | 21 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 28 Sept | 33.3 °C | 22 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 29 Sept | 33.9 °C | 20 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 30 Sept | 34.2 °C | 18 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 1 Oct | 35.4 °C | 19 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 2 Oct | 35.5 °C | 17 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 3 Oct | 34.6 °C | 19 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 4 Oct | 35.1 °C | 15 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 5 Oct | 35.0 °C | 24 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 6 Oct | 35.8 °C | 21 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 7 Oct | 36.4 °C | 20 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 8 Oct | 36.2 °C | 23 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 9 Oct | 36.8 °C | 22 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 10 Oct | 37.2 °C | 21 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 11 Oct | 37.4 °C | 20 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 12 Oct after | 37.8 °C | 23 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 13 Oct after | 36.3 °C | 30 % | 31 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 45 |
| 14 Oct after | 35.5 °C | 33 % | 37 km/h | 1.3 mm | High 33 |
| 15 Oct after | 36.2 °C | 31 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 16 Oct after | 36.5 °C | 28 % | 34 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very high 40 |
| 17 Oct after | 36.3 °C | 23 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 18 Oct after | 35.5 °C | 31 % | 34 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very high 46 |
| 19 Oct after | 35.1 °C | 29 % | 33 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 46 |
| 20 Oct after | 35.8 °C | 30 % | 36 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very high 47 |
| 21 Oct after | 36.6 °C | 26 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 22 Oct after | 37.1 °C | 22 % | 34 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very high 47 |
| 23 Oct after | 35.6 °C | 25 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 24 Oct after | 36.4 °C | 22 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 25 Oct after | 37.4 °C | 19 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 26 Oct after | 37.3 °C | 15 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 27 Oct after | 38.6 °C | 15 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 2,996Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Cook fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 September 2018 and 11 October 2018: 22 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 93,971 hectares (939.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Cook (95,124 ha, 0.9 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 66, 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
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
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.