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Cook fire, 29 October 2018 Cook, Carpentaria

Out · last detection 6 Nov 2018, 16:06 UTC

The fire started on 29 October 2018 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,556 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 805th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 412 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
9,556ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
29 Oct 2018 – 6 Nov 2018
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
29 Oct
2018
Heat detections
291
in a single hotspot: 31 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Nov 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Oct6 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

293031123456

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
50km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

42% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,022 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Cook where it started
    7,812 ha reached on 27 Oct
    0.1 %
  2. Carpentaria
    1,837 ha reached on 31 Oct
    0.0 %

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 Oct 38.3 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
28 Oct 37.7 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
29 Oct 38.4 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
30 Oct 38.7 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
31 Oct 39.0 °C 27 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
1 Nov 38.5 °C 26 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
2 Nov 37.1 °C 28 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
3 Nov 38.6 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
4 Nov 38.2 °C 24 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
5 Nov 37.9 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
6 Nov 37.4 °C 27 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
7 Nov after 37.3 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
8 Nov after 37.4 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
9 Nov after 37.4 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
10 Nov after 36.1 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
11 Nov after 36.1 °C 35 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Nov after 38.5 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
13 Nov after 37.7 °C 21 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
14 Nov after 37.8 °C 23 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
15 Nov after 37.6 °C 23 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
16 Nov after 38.0 °C 20 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Oct 2018
After · 13 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 · 291Every 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 29 October 2018 and 6 November 2018: 9 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 9,556 hectares (95.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cook (7,812 ha, 0.1 %); Carpentaria (1,837 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.0 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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
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.