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Cook fire, 26 August 2019 Napranum, Cook

Out · last detection 19 Sept 2019, 04:14 UTC

The fire started on 26 August 2019 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,151 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 550th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 282 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Burnt area
13,151ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
25days
26 Aug 2019 – 19 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
26 Aug
2019
Heat detections
420
in a single hotspot: 159 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Sept 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Aug19 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

2627282930311234567910111213141516171819

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
56km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

56% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,184 ha in 2016, 11 ha in 2017, 2,781 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,351 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Napranum
    6,688 ha reached on 25 Aug
    3.3 %
  2. Cook where it started
    6,516 ha reached on 26 Aug
    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)
23 Aug 29.8 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Aug 29.2 °C 34 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
25 Aug 31.0 °C 32 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Aug 30.5 °C 39 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Aug 31.9 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Aug 31.9 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Aug 31.5 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
30 Aug 32.0 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
31 Aug 32.0 °C 32 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Sept 30.9 °C 31 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
2 Sept 30.5 °C 31 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
3 Sept 29.9 °C 32 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Sept 29.8 °C 35 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Sept 30.0 °C 32 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
6 Sept 30.9 °C 31 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
7 Sept 32.0 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 Sept 34.2 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Sept 32.1 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
10 Sept 31.4 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
11 Sept 28.8 °C 33 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Sept 28.6 °C 42 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Sept 29.6 °C 37 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Sept 30.2 °C 35 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Sept 30.3 °C 34 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Sept 30.6 °C 38 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Sept 31.9 °C 32 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Sept 33.9 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Sept 32.8 °C 29 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Sept after 30.8 °C 44 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
21 Sept after 32.3 °C 40 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Sept after 32.8 °C 35 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Sept after 31.3 °C 41 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Sept after 31.4 °C 38 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Sept after 32.2 °C 33 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Sept after 30.9 °C 41 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
27 Sept after 32.5 °C 36 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Sept after 34.5 °C 29 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
29 Sept after 34.8 °C 30 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Sept after 33.2 °C 40 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Oct after 34.9 °C 26 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Aug 2019
After · 26 Sept 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 · 420Every 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 26 August 2019 and 19 September 2019: 25 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 13,151 hectares (131.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Napranum (6,688 ha, 3.3 %); Cook (6,516 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.2 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.