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Cook fire, 12 October 2019 Northern Peninsula Area, Cook

Out · last detection 26 Oct 2019, 15:27 UTC

The fire started on 12 October 2019 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,250 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 741th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 367 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Burnt area
10,250ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
12 Oct 2019 – 25 Oct 2019
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
12 Oct
2019
Heat detections
411
in a single hotspot: 61 MW
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Oct 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Oct25 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

131415161718192021222326

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
63km/h · peak gust
39%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 27 Oct.

This area had burned before

71% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,241 ha in 2016, 2,176 ha in 2017, 455 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,287 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Northern Peninsula Area
    6,665 ha reached on 14 Oct
    6.3 %
  2. Cook where it started
    3,618 ha reached on 13 Oct
    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)
12 Oct 31.4 °C 47 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
13 Oct 31.7 °C 44 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
14 Oct 31.5 °C 42 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Oct 30.9 °C 43 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
16 Oct 32.3 °C 39 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
17 Oct 31.9 °C 42 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Oct 31.3 °C 42 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
19 Oct 31.5 °C 39 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Oct 31.9 °C 42 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
21 Oct 31.4 °C 44 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Oct 31.0 °C 50 % 56 km/h 0.6 mm High 33
23 Oct 30.9 °C 50 % 63 km/h 0.3 mm High 35
24 Oct 30.5 °C 58 % 55 km/h 0.5 mm High 32
25 Oct 31.1 °C 58 % 38 km/h 0.4 mm High 26
26 Oct after 32.6 °C 51 % 34 km/h 3.0 mm Low 10
27 Oct after 31.9 °C 54 % 43 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 19

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Oct 2019
After · 1 Nov 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 · 411Every 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 12 October 2019 and 25 October 2019: 14 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 10,250 hectares (102.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Northern Peninsula Area (6,665 ha, 6.3 %); Cook (3,618 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.6 °C, humidity dropped to 39 % and gusts hit 63 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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
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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.