Skip to content
worldfires
AU · Australia · →

Cook fire, August 2020 Cook

Out · last detection 16 Sept 2020, 04:07 UTC

The fire started on 12 August 2020 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 36 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 22,589 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 279th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 34 in Australia in 2020, of 320.

Burnt area
22,589ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
36days
12 Aug 2020 – 16 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
12 Aug
2020
Heat detections
1,219
in a single hotspot: 92 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
9.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Sept 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Aug16 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

12131415161718192021222324252627283031123456789101112131516

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
64km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 51 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

61% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 13,028 ha in 2016, 576 ha in 2017, 492 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Cook where it started
    22,828 ha reached on 9 Aug
    0.2 %

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)
5 Aug 30.7 °C 41 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Aug 28.8 °C 58 % 38 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 16
7 Aug 31.9 °C 51 % 23 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 20
8 Aug 30.1 °C 63 % 27 km/h 3.4 mm Low 6
9 Aug 32.2 °C 53 % 27 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 14
10 Aug 31.2 °C 48 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
11 Aug 30.0 °C 53 % 36 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 21
12 Aug 32.4 °C 41 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
13 Aug 31.5 °C 39 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Aug 31.3 °C 39 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Aug 32.5 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
16 Aug 33.3 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
17 Aug 32.2 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Aug 31.8 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
19 Aug 31.9 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Aug 34.6 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Aug 33.1 °C 38 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
22 Aug 33.5 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
23 Aug 31.9 °C 30 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Aug 32.1 °C 30 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Aug 30.3 °C 35 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Aug 30.2 °C 35 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
27 Aug 30.0 °C 37 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Aug 29.7 °C 40 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
29 Aug 28.4 °C 55 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Aug 27.8 °C 62 % 63 km/h 0.7 mm High 27
31 Aug 30.9 °C 44 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Sept 30.6 °C 42 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Sept 30.5 °C 40 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Sept 31.8 °C 45 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 Sept 31.8 °C 38 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Sept 32.0 °C 35 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
6 Sept 31.9 °C 33 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
7 Sept 31.6 °C 42 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Sept 30.8 °C 42 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Sept 31.5 °C 36 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 Sept 29.7 °C 43 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
11 Sept 31.5 °C 32 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
12 Sept 31.6 °C 31 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Sept 30.2 °C 41 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Sept 29.1 °C 50 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Sept 31.6 °C 40 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Sept 31.6 °C 42 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
17 Sept after 30.3 °C 59 % 60 km/h 1.4 mm High 21
18 Sept after 31.4 °C 43 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
19 Sept after 31.8 °C 42 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Sept after 33.3 °C 39 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Sept after 32.5 °C 43 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Sept after 33.8 °C 40 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Sept after 34.2 °C 34 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Sept after 33.3 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Sept after 33.6 °C 41 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
26 Sept after 35.0 °C 36 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Sept after 33.6 °C 35 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Sept after 33.4 °C 33 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
29 Sept after 31.9 °C 36 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
30 Sept after 31.9 °C 37 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 Oct after 32.4 °C 36 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Oct after 31.0 °C 40 % 63 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
3 Oct after 31.5 °C 38 % 68 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Aug 2020
After · 23 Sept 2020

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 · 1,219Every 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 August 2020 and 16 September 2020: 36 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 22,589 hectares (225.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cook (22,828 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.6 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 64 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.