Skip to content
worldfires
AU · Australia · →

Cook fire, 16 August 2019 Mareeba, Cook

Out · last detection 25 Aug 2019, 03:42 UTC

The fire started on 16 August 2019 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,976 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 1408th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 649 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Burnt area
5,976ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
16 Aug 2019 – 25 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
16 Aug
2019
Heat detections
220
in a single hotspot: 36 MW
Danger at start
25
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Aug 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Aug25 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

16171819202122232425

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
49km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

8% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 505 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Mareeba
    4,641 ha reached on 14 Aug
    0.1 %
  2. Cook where it started
    1,366 ha reached on 16 Aug
    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)
16 Aug 27.7 °C 48 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm High 25
17 Aug 27.9 °C 41 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
18 Aug 29.3 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
19 Aug 29.6 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Aug 27.2 °C 31 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
21 Aug 24.7 °C 38 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Aug 26.0 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Aug 26.5 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Aug 25.9 °C 36 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
25 Aug 27.3 °C 39 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Aug after 28.1 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Aug after 28.7 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
28 Aug after 29.2 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
29 Aug after 28.7 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Aug after 29.1 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
31 Aug after 29.1 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Sept after 28.5 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Sept after 26.4 °C 36 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Sept after 26.4 °C 30 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Sept after 28.7 °C 12 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Aug 2019
After · 1 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 · 220Every 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 16 August 2019 and 25 August 2019: 10 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 5,976 hectares (59.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mareeba (4,641 ha, 0.1 %); Cook (1,366 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.6 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, class Very 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.

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.