Skip to content
worldfires
en
AU · Australia · →

Cook fire, 20 September 2021 Cook

Out · last detection 30 Oct 2021, 15:48 UTC

The fire started on 20 September 2021 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 40 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,703 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 393th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1744 with a page). Number 92 in Australia in 2021, of 460.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Cook · 2018Cook · 2021Cook · 2023Cook · 2016

Burnt area
16,703ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
40days
20 Sept 2021 – 29 Oct 2021
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
20 Sept
2021
Heat detections
842
in a single hotspot: 136 MW
Danger at start
21
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
193MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Sept29 Oct
30 Oct 2021

How it evolved, day by day

23 Sept 2021 · 6 MW · 2 24 Sept 2021 · 20 MW · 6 25 Sept 2021 · 7 MW · 2 26 Sept 2021 · 41 MW · 8 27 Sept 2021 · 11 MW · 3 28 Sept 2021 · 11 MW · 4 29 Sept 2021 · 37 MW · 6 30 Sept 2021 · 91 MW · 19 1 Oct 2021 · 497 MW · 32 2 Oct 2021 · 93 MW · 15 3 Oct 2021 · 673 MW · 39 4 Oct 2021 · 431 MW · 44 5 Oct 2021 · 525 MW · 49 6 Oct 2021 · 305 MW · 40 7 Oct 2021 · 70 MW · 11 8 Oct 2021 · 95 MW · 9 9 Oct 2021 · 122 MW · 25 10 Oct 2021 · 305 MW · 55 11 Oct 2021 · 496 MW · 35 12 Oct 2021 · 100 MW · 19 13 Oct 2021 · 81 MW · 15 14 Oct 2021 · 79 MW · 26 15 Oct 2021 · 36 MW · 8 16 Oct 2021 · 62 MW · 12 17 Oct 2021 · 140 MW · 23 18 Oct 2021 · 362 MW · 55 19 Oct 2021 · 404 MW · 50 20 Oct 2021 · 556 MW · 56 21 Oct 2021 · 649 MW · 39 22 Oct 2021 · 445 MW · 45 23 Oct 2021 · 97 MW · 17 24 Oct 2021 · 73 MW · 14 25 Oct 2021 · 144 MW · 15 26 Oct 2021 · 60 MW · 10 27 Oct 2021 · 108 MW · 15 28 Oct 2021 · 53 MW · 12 29 Oct 2021 · 21 MW · 4 30 Oct 2021 · 9 MW · 3
23 Sept 29 Sept 3 Oct 5 Oct 11 Oct 17 Oct 23 Oct 29 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
58km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.8 mm on 7 Nov.

This area had burned before

44% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,380 ha in 2016, 4,725 ha in 2017, 323 ha in 2018, 149 ha in 2019.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 11% of the area of London (167 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Cook where it started
    16,844 ha reached on 23 Sept
    0.2 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
20 Sept 30.6 °C 39 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
21 Sept 32.2 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
22 Sept 31.2 °C 22 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
23 Sept 28.6 °C 35 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Sept 28.4 °C 50 % 52 km/h 0.2 mm High 25
25 Sept 29.4 °C 51 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
26 Sept 31.1 °C 47 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
27 Sept 31.0 °C 44 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
28 Sept 30.9 °C 46 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
29 Sept 30.7 °C 47 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
30 Sept 32.0 °C 42 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
1 Oct 33.0 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
2 Oct 34.6 °C 34 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
3 Oct 34.2 °C 40 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
4 Oct 34.9 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
5 Oct 35.0 °C 35 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
6 Oct 31.9 °C 39 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Oct 32.4 °C 37 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
8 Oct 31.6 °C 44 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Oct 31.3 °C 39 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Oct 31.5 °C 42 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Oct 32.8 °C 37 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Oct 33.7 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
13 Oct 34.4 °C 39 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Oct 34.1 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
15 Oct 31.7 °C 47 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
16 Oct 35.5 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Oct 35.2 °C 37 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
18 Oct 34.4 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
19 Oct 34.4 °C 38 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Oct 35.8 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Oct 35.0 °C 38 % 39 km/h 0.5 mm High 36
22 Oct 34.4 °C 43 % 39 km/h 2.4 mm Moderate 18
23 Oct 32.9 °C 38 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
24 Oct 31.4 °C 44 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Oct 32.6 °C 43 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
26 Oct 33.6 °C 38 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Oct 32.4 °C 41 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 Oct 32.5 °C 39 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Oct 32.6 °C 43 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
30 Oct after 33.8 °C 37 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
31 Oct after 34.0 °C 43 % 46 km/h 0.3 mm High 33
1 Nov after 33.7 °C 46 % 59 km/h 0.3 mm High 37
2 Nov after 33.6 °C 37 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
3 Nov after 34.6 °C 36 % 50 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
4 Nov after 32.7 °C 39 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Nov after 32.3 °C 40 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
6 Nov after 33.6 °C 39 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
7 Nov after 32.1 °C 55 % 44 km/h 3.8 mm Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Sept 2021
After · 5 Nov 2021

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 · 842Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 20 September 2021 to 29 October 2021 (40 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 September 2021 to 24 October 2021.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 16,703 hectares (167.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cook (16,844 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.8 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 58 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 24 October 2021 → 29 October 2021.
  2. Start date: 27 September 2021 → 20 September 2021.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 27 September 2021 to 24 October 2021. 842 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.