How long did the Cook fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 November 2020 and 11 December 2020: 30 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 59,231 hectares (592.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Cook (59,722 ha, 0.6 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 39.1 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, class Extreme.

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 · 2020-11-12 → 2020-12-11

Cook fire, 12 November 2020 Cook

Out · last detection 11 Dec 2020, 03:54 UTC

The fire started on 12 November 2020 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 30 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 59,231 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 81th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 10 in Australia in 2020, of 320.

Burnt area: 59,231ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 30days; 12 Nov 2020 – 11 Dec 2020
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 12 Nov; 2020
Heat detections: 2,440; in a single hotspot: 120 MW
Danger at start: 44; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 14.4GW; sum of detected power

Play back 11 Dec 2020

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Nov11 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

1213141516171819202122232426272829301234567891011

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

The weather it burned in

39°high

55km/h · peak gust

18%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 13 Dec.

This area had burned before

42% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 24,854 ha in 2016, 11 ha in 2019.

11,245 ha Cook fire, November 2016 33,851 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Cook where it started

59,722 ha reached on 12 Nov

0.6 %

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)
11 Nov	38.8 °C	21 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
12 Nov	36.5 °C	34 %	38 km/h	2.4 mm	Moderate 21
13 Nov	38.2 °C	30 %	30 km/h	5.7 mm	Moderate 12
14 Nov	38.0 °C	28 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
15 Nov	37.9 °C	21 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
16 Nov	38.7 °C	21 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
17 Nov	38.2 °C	18 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
18 Nov	37.8 °C	25 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
19 Nov	37.5 °C	25 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
20 Nov	37.8 °C	23 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
21 Nov	37.0 °C	27 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
22 Nov	38.3 °C	22 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
23 Nov	39.1 °C	22 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
24 Nov	38.6 °C	24 %	41 km/h	0.6 mm	Very high 41
25 Nov	37.3 °C	36 %	49 km/h	24.5 mm	Low 6
26 Nov	36.9 °C	35 %	34 km/h	2.4 mm	Moderate 12
27 Nov	34.8 °C	38 %	40 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 21
28 Nov	33.9 °C	39 %	41 km/h	0.6 mm	Moderate 21
29 Nov	33.2 °C	47 %	44 km/h	0.4 mm	Moderate 21
30 Nov	35.1 °C	43 %	38 km/h	0.6 mm	Moderate 21
1 Dec	36.9 °C	37 %	38 km/h	0.6 mm	High 23
2 Dec	36.1 °C	39 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
3 Dec	36.3 °C	32 %	54 km/h	0.1 mm	High 30
4 Dec	36.7 °C	30 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
5 Dec	37.4 °C	28 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
6 Dec	37.9 °C	27 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
7 Dec	37.6 °C	36 %	46 km/h	0.9 mm	High 29
8 Dec	34.8 °C	46 %	48 km/h	3.2 mm	Low 9
9 Dec	36.7 °C	39 %	40 km/h	5.9 mm	Low 7
10 Dec	34.2 °C	46 %	35 km/h	1.2 mm	Moderate 11
11 Dec	34.8 °C	44 %	34 km/h	1.1 mm	Moderate 14
12 Dec after	34.1 °C	43 %	33 km/h	0.3 mm	Moderate 17
13 Dec after	34.0 °C	44 %	34 km/h	2.5 mm	Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 5 Nov 2020

After · 18 Dec 2020

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 · 2,440Every 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 12 November 2020 and 11 December 2020: 30 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 59,231 hectares (592.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Cook (59,722 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 39.1 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, class Extreme.
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