How long did the Cook fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 July 2021 and 29 July 2021: 11 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 6,117 hectares (61.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cook (3,127 ha, 0.0 %); Mareeba (3,045 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 34.3 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.

AU · Australia · 2021-07-19 → 2021-07-29

Cook fire, 19 July 2021 Cook, Mareeba

Out · last detection 29 Jul 2021, 03:42 UTC

The fire started on 19 July 2021 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,117 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 1363th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 347 in Australia in 2021, of 460.

Burnt area: 6,117ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 11days; 19 Jul 2021 – 29 Jul 2021
Municipalities hit: 2; local government areas
Started on: 19 Jul; 2021
Heat detections: 270; in a single hotspot: 50 MW
Danger at start: 33; High · FWI index
Energy released: 1.3GW; sum of detected power

Play back 29 Jul 2021

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Jul29 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

20212223242526272829

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

34km/h · peak gust

16%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 86 ha in 2017, 80 ha in 2018, 94 ha in 2020.

80 ha Mareeba fire, May 2018 13,508 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Cook where it started

3,127 ha reached on 15 Jul

0.0 %
Mareeba

3,045 ha reached on 21 Jul

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)
15 Jul	33.1 °C	31 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
16 Jul	31.7 °C	39 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
17 Jul	33.2 °C	34 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
18 Jul	32.2 °C	39 %	26 km/h	0.1 mm	High 32
19 Jul	30.5 °C	43 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
20 Jul	31.2 °C	36 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
21 Jul	30.2 °C	37 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
22 Jul	30.6 °C	30 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
23 Jul	32.3 °C	28 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
24 Jul	32.0 °C	28 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
25 Jul	32.8 °C	24 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
26 Jul	31.7 °C	28 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
27 Jul	30.9 °C	31 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
28 Jul	31.5 °C	27 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
29 Jul	32.8 °C	21 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
30 Jul after	34.3 °C	16 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
31 Jul after	33.4 °C	21 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
1 Aug after	31.9 °C	23 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
2 Aug after	32.1 °C	16 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
3 Aug after	31.1 °C	25 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
4 Aug after	31.3 °C	27 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
5 Aug after	30.3 °C	18 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
6 Aug after	26.8 °C	22 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
7 Aug after	29.3 °C	26 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
8 Aug after	30.6 °C	31 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
9 Aug after	31.7 °C	29 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
10 Aug after	30.4 °C	36 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
11 Aug after	32.7 °C	22 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
12 Aug after	31.7 °C	28 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
13 Aug after	31.0 °C	32 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 12 Jul 2021

After · 5 Aug 2021

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 · 270Every 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 19 July 2021 and 29 July 2021: 11 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 6,117 hectares (61.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cook (3,127 ha, 0.0 %); Mareeba (3,045 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 34.3 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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

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