How long did the Cook fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 September 2019 and 27 October 2019: 38 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 100,501 hectares (1,005.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Cook (100,321 ha, 0.9 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 70 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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.

AU · Australia · 2019-09-20 → 2019-10-27

Cook fire, 20 September 2019 Cook

Out · last detection 27 Oct 2019, 15:08 UTC

The fire started on 20 September 2019 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 38 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 100,501 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:

It is the 40th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 26 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Cook · 2016 Cook · 2017 Cook · 2018 Cook · 2016

Burnt area: 100,501ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 38days; 20 Sept 2019 – 27 Oct 2019
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 20 Sept; 2019
Heat detections: 4,606; in a single hotspot: 436 MW
Danger at start: 41; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 1.1GW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Sept27 Oct

Play back 27 Oct 2019

How it evolved, day by day

20 Sept 25 Sept 27 Sept 3 Oct 9 Oct 15 Oct 21 Oct 27 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

36°high

70km/h · peak gust

19%lowest humidity

It had gone 39 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 10 Nov.

This area had burned before

62% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 50,073 ha in 2016, 12,526 ha in 2017, 3,140 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 61,867 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 63% of the area of London (1,005 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Cook where it started

100,321 ha reached on 18 Sept

0.9 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020

Built-up area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
17 Sept	32.2 °C	31 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
18 Sept	32.8 °C	29 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
19 Sept	31.4 °C	40 %	47 km/h	0.1 mm	High 38
20 Sept	32.2 °C	42 %	59 km/h	0.4 mm	Very high 43
21 Sept	31.3 °C	45 %	64 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
22 Sept	32.6 °C	40 %	62 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
23 Sept	30.3 °C	44 %	63 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
24 Sept	30.7 °C	40 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
25 Sept	31.1 °C	39 %	58 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
26 Sept	30.3 °C	48 %	64 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
27 Sept	30.3 °C	49 %	55 km/h	0.3 mm	High 36
28 Sept	31.8 °C	41 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
29 Sept	33.5 °C	37 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
30 Sept	31.5 °C	52 %	61 km/h	0.4 mm	Very high 38
1 Oct	33.8 °C	37 %	63 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
2 Oct	31.3 °C	48 %	63 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
3 Oct	31.9 °C	36 %	68 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
4 Oct	31.8 °C	43 %	60 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 42
5 Oct	31.8 °C	35 %	59 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
6 Oct	33.4 °C	35 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
7 Oct	32.3 °C	41 %	59 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
8 Oct	32.2 °C	35 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
9 Oct	32.5 °C	34 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
10 Oct	35.6 °C	25 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
11 Oct	36.5 °C	19 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
12 Oct	35.4 °C	29 %	44 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 47
13 Oct	36.4 °C	25 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
14 Oct	33.5 °C	34 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
15 Oct	32.6 °C	32 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
16 Oct	33.7 °C	32 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
17 Oct	33.6 °C	35 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
18 Oct	32.8 °C	35 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
19 Oct	33.3 °C	34 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
20 Oct	33.7 °C	36 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
21 Oct	33.5 °C	36 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
22 Oct	31.2 °C	47 %	59 km/h	0.5 mm	Very high 42
23 Oct	32.0 °C	43 %	70 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
24 Oct	31.7 °C	48 %	56 km/h	0.4 mm	Very high 40
25 Oct	33.0 °C	47 %	45 km/h	0.6 mm	High 30
26 Oct	33.1 °C	42 %	53 km/h	1.1 mm	High 30
27 Oct	32.4 °C	48 %	50 km/h	0.7 mm	High 30
28 Oct after	31.7 °C	53 %	44 km/h	1.5 mm	Moderate 18
29 Oct after	31.8 °C	50 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
30 Oct after	32.9 °C	40 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
31 Oct after	33.3 °C	38 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
1 Nov after	33.9 °C	37 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
2 Nov after	33.2 °C	38 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
3 Nov after	33.2 °C	39 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
4 Nov after	34.0 °C	35 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
5 Nov after	33.6 °C	32 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
6 Nov after	33.6 °C	32 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
7 Nov after	33.5 °C	36 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
8 Nov after	35.0 °C	34 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
9 Nov after	33.7 °C	39 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
10 Nov after	36.1 °C	31 %	39 km/h	1.2 mm	High 33

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 13 Sept 2019

After · 3 Nov 2019

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 · 4,606Every 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 20 September 2019 and 27 October 2019: 38 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 100,501 hectares (1,005.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Cook (100,321 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 70 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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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What really happened?

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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.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 4,606 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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