How long did the Cook fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 October 2018 and 6 November 2018: 17 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 12,498 hectares (125.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Cook (12,653 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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 · 2018-10-21 → 2018-11-06

Cook fire, 21 October 2018 Cook

Out · last detection 7 Nov 2018, 15:47 UTC

The fire started on 21 October 2018 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,498 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 585th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 277 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area: 12,498ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 17days; 21 Oct 2018 – 6 Nov 2018
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 21 Oct; 2018
Heat detections: 376; in a single hotspot: 118 MW
Danger at start: 40; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 2.8GW; sum of detected power

Play back 7 Nov 2018

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Oct6 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

2122232425272829311234567

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

The weather it burned in

38°high

59km/h · peak gust

20%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

51% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,892 ha in 2016, 732 ha in 2017.

3,826 ha Cook fire, September 2016 198,530 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Cook where it started

12,653 ha reached on 21 Oct

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)
21 Oct	36.2 °C	28 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
22 Oct	36.5 °C	25 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
23 Oct	34.9 °C	32 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
24 Oct	35.3 °C	30 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
25 Oct	34.9 °C	21 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
26 Oct	35.8 °C	20 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
27 Oct	37.1 °C	20 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
28 Oct	37.4 °C	27 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
29 Oct	37.5 °C	29 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
30 Oct	35.2 °C	35 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
31 Oct	34.7 °C	38 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
1 Nov	35.0 °C	36 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
2 Nov	33.9 °C	40 %	59 km/h	0.3 mm	Very high 47
3 Nov	33.9 °C	42 %	57 km/h	0.3 mm	Very high 43
4 Nov	35.1 °C	35 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
5 Nov	36.0 °C	32 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
6 Nov	35.9 °C	31 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
7 Nov after	36.5 °C	30 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
8 Nov after	36.4 °C	34 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
9 Nov after	34.2 °C	40 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
10 Nov after	35.3 °C	34 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
11 Nov after	33.9 °C	41 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
12 Nov after	34.6 °C	35 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
13 Nov after	34.9 °C	23 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
14 Nov after	35.4 °C	27 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
15 Nov after	34.7 °C	29 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
16 Nov after	35.1 °C	27 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
17 Nov after	35.4 °C	26 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
18 Nov after	35.0 °C	28 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
19 Nov after	35.6 °C	27 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
20 Nov after	35.2 °C	31 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
21 Nov after	35.5 °C	32 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
22 Nov after	37.5 °C	30 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
23 Nov after	37.1 °C	36 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 14 Oct 2018

After · 13 Nov 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 · 376Every 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 21 October 2018 and 6 November 2018: 17 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 12,498 hectares (125.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Cook (12,653 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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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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