How long did the Cook fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 November 2019 and 5 December 2019: 26 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 10,317 hectares (103.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Cook (10,441 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 34.0 °C, humidity dropped to 39 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, 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.

AU · Australia · 2019-11-10 → 2019-12-05

Cook fire, 10 November 2019 Cook

Out · last detection 5 Dec 2019, 16:18 UTC

The fire started on 10 November 2019 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,317 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 736th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 365 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Burnt area: 10,317ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 26days; 10 Nov 2019 – 5 Dec 2019
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 10 Nov; 2019
Heat detections: 568; in a single hotspot: 220 MW
Danger at start: 22; High · FWI index
Energy released: 3.3GW; sum of detected power

Play back 5 Dec 2019

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Nov5 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

101112131415161718202122232425262728293012345

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

54km/h · peak gust

39%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.8 mm on 10 Dec.

This area had burned before

62% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,362 ha in 2016, 241 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

Cook where it started

10,441 ha reached on 7 Nov

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)
7 Nov	29.8 °C	45 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
8 Nov	30.8 °C	39 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
9 Nov	32.2 °C	47 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
10 Nov	32.5 °C	43 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
11 Nov	29.5 °C	47 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
12 Nov	29.3 °C	43 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
13 Nov	30.8 °C	40 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
14 Nov	30.6 °C	46 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
15 Nov	30.5 °C	45 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
16 Nov	31.1 °C	42 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
17 Nov	31.4 °C	46 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
18 Nov	31.9 °C	43 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
19 Nov	31.0 °C	49 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
20 Nov	31.2 °C	45 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
21 Nov	30.7 °C	47 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
22 Nov	29.7 °C	47 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
23 Nov	30.2 °C	46 %	48 km/h	0.2 mm	High 28
24 Nov	31.4 °C	43 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
25 Nov	30.9 °C	49 %	38 km/h	0.2 mm	High 24
26 Nov	32.1 °C	43 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
27 Nov	31.5 °C	43 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
28 Nov	30.6 °C	46 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
29 Nov	30.3 °C	54 %	50 km/h	0.8 mm	High 21
30 Nov	31.5 °C	47 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
1 Dec	33.0 °C	46 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
2 Dec	32.4 °C	56 %	35 km/h	0.8 mm	Moderate 16
3 Dec	34.0 °C	50 %	32 km/h	1.1 mm	Moderate 17
4 Dec	32.5 °C	56 %	34 km/h	0.5 mm	Moderate 19
5 Dec	33.0 °C	51 %	38 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 21
6 Dec after	33.0 °C	47 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
7 Dec after	32.7 °C	40 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
8 Dec after	32.2 °C	42 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
9 Dec after	31.3 °C	41 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
10 Dec after	30.1 °C	62 %	58 km/h	2.8 mm	Low 11

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 3 Nov 2019

After · 12 Dec 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 · 568Every 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 10 November 2019 and 5 December 2019: 26 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 10,317 hectares (103.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Cook (10,441 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 34.0 °C, humidity dropped to 39 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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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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