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Cook fire, 2 October 2021 Cook

Out · last detection 14 Nov 2021, 16:07 UTC

The fire started on 2 October 2021 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 43 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 36,678 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 146th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 27 in Australia in 2021, of 460.

Burnt area
36,678ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
43days
2 Oct 2021 – 13 Nov 2021
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
2 Oct
2021
Heat detections
1,531
in a single hotspot: 105 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
10.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Nov 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Oct13 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

345678910111213141617181920212223242526272829303112345678910111314

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
53km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 17 Nov.

This area had burned before

74% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 28,023 ha in 2018, 149 ha in 2019, 536 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 27,325 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cook where it started
    37,258 ha reached on 3 Oct
    0.4 %

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)
2 Oct 33.3 °C 32 % 32 km/h 1.0 mm High 29
3 Oct 35.3 °C 26 % 46 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 42
4 Oct 35.5 °C 24 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
5 Oct 35.8 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Oct 35.4 °C 20 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
7 Oct 35.0 °C 23 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
8 Oct 35.4 °C 21 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
9 Oct 34.6 °C 25 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
10 Oct 33.9 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 48
11 Oct 33.7 °C 22 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
12 Oct 33.9 °C 29 % 47 km/h 0.7 mm High 36
13 Oct 35.2 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 44
14 Oct 35.1 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Oct 31.5 °C 45 % 32 km/h 3.5 mm Low 8
16 Oct 34.1 °C 35 % 33 km/h 9.1 mm Low 8
17 Oct 34.6 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
18 Oct 35.2 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Oct 35.7 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
20 Oct 34.5 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
21 Oct 35.6 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Oct 34.0 °C 36 % 50 km/h 6.4 mm Low 7
23 Oct 33.6 °C 29 % 37 km/h 1.4 mm Moderate 19
24 Oct 33.1 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
25 Oct 33.6 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Oct 35.2 °C 27 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Oct 34.9 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
28 Oct 35.1 °C 28 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
29 Oct 35.0 °C 24 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Oct 35.2 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.4 mm High 35
31 Oct 35.5 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
1 Nov 34.4 °C 36 % 44 km/h 0.2 mm High 37
2 Nov 33.3 °C 39 % 53 km/h 0.3 mm High 38
3 Nov 35.3 °C 27 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Nov 32.6 °C 34 % 45 km/h 1.3 mm High 27
5 Nov 35.0 °C 25 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Nov 35.2 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Nov 34.8 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 39
8 Nov 35.4 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 40
9 Nov 34.3 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 38
10 Nov 35.7 °C 29 % 46 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 40
11 Nov 35.5 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Nov 36.0 °C 34 % 40 km/h 10.4 mm Low 10
13 Nov 36.1 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.8 mm High 27
14 Nov after 33.0 °C 43 % 51 km/h 3.1 mm Moderate 12
15 Nov after 34.5 °C 38 % 41 km/h 5.1 mm Low 7
16 Nov after 34.0 °C 40 % 36 km/h 16.4 mm Very low 2
17 Nov after 34.3 °C 39 % 40 km/h 1.6 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Sept 2021
After · 20 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 · 1,531Every 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 2 October 2021 and 13 November 2021: 43 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 36,678 hectares (366.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cook (37,258 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.1 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 53 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

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
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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.