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Cook fire, 18 June 2019 Cook

Out · last detection 25 Jun 2019, 04:25 UTC

The fire started on 18 June 2019 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,293 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1316th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 616 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

The power measured by the satellite is low (24.9 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
6,293ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
18 Jun 2019 – 25 Jun 2019
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
18 Jun
2019
Heat detections
221
in a single hotspot: 25 MW
Danger at start
21
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
896MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Jun 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jun25 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

19202122232425

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
48km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 9 Jul.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 37 ha in 2016, 4 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Cook where it started
    6,402 ha reached on 15 Jun
    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)
15 Jun 27.8 °C 42 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
16 Jun 27.6 °C 42 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
17 Jun 28.0 °C 44 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
18 Jun 28.5 °C 34 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
19 Jun 28.2 °C 33 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
20 Jun 27.4 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
21 Jun 28.3 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
22 Jun 28.4 °C 34 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
23 Jun 27.9 °C 29 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
24 Jun 28.3 °C 18 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Jun 27.9 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Jun after 27.1 °C 44 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
27 Jun after 28.0 °C 42 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Jun after 29.1 °C 42 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
29 Jun after 28.7 °C 41 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Jun after 27.9 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Jul after 27.1 °C 40 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
2 Jul after 26.9 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Jul after 27.6 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
4 Jul after 26.8 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
5 Jul after 27.4 °C 42 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
6 Jul after 28.3 °C 37 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
7 Jul after 29.7 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
8 Jul after 30.3 °C 29 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Jul after 27.3 °C 50 % 41 km/h 1.4 mm Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Jun 2019
After · 2 Jul 2019

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 · 221Every 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 18 June 2019 and 25 June 2019: 8 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 6,293 hectares (62.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cook (6,402 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.1 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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.

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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.