Cook fire, 3 October 2019 Cook
The fire started on 3 October 2019 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,585 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 1515th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 693 in Australia in 2019, of 802.
- Burnt area
- 5,585ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 19days
- 3 Oct 2019 – 21 Oct 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 3 Oct
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 258
- in a single hotspot: 76 MW
- Danger at start
- 25
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 90MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 42 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 24 Oct.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
Cook where it started5,578 ha reached on 3 Oct0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Oct | 27.3 °C | 61 % | 63 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 4 Oct | 27.4 °C | 60 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 5 Oct | 27.2 °C | 59 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 6 Oct | 28.0 °C | 61 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 7 Oct | 27.0 °C | 65 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 8 Oct | 26.9 °C | 60 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 9 Oct | 27.3 °C | 56 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 10 Oct | 27.9 °C | 54 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 11 Oct | 27.7 °C | 59 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 12 Oct | 28.1 °C | 63 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 13 Oct | 28.4 °C | 59 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 14 Oct | 27.8 °C | 61 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 15 Oct | 27.0 °C | 60 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 16 Oct | 27.6 °C | 57 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 17 Oct | 28.1 °C | 59 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 18 Oct | 27.3 °C | 63 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 19 Oct | 28.2 °C | 56 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 20 Oct | 28.4 °C | 59 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 21 Oct | 27.9 °C | 61 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 22 Oct after | 27.5 °C | 67 % | 56 km/h | 0.8 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 23 Oct after | 27.9 °C | 63 % | 59 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 26 |
| 24 Oct after | 27.7 °C | 69 % | 53 km/h | 1.2 mm | Moderate 16 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 258Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Cook fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 October 2019 and 21 October 2019: 19 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 5,585 hectares (55.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Cook (5,578 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 28.4 °C, humidity dropped to 54 % and gusts hit 63 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, 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.
Report an error
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.