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Cook fire, 21 July 2022 Cook

Out · last detection 26 Jul 2022, 15:03 UTC

The fire started on 21 July 2022 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,196 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1652th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 535 in Australia in 2022, of 566.

The power measured by the satellite is low (18.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
5,196ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
21 Jul 2022 – 30 Jul 2022
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
21 Jul
2022
Heat detections
157
in a single hotspot: 19 MW
Danger at start
17
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
841MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Jul 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Jul30 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

212223242526

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
55km/h · peak gust
42%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,054 ha in 2016, 1,618 ha in 2017, 2,328 ha in 2018, 30 ha in 2019, 3,625 ha in 2020, 171 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,984 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cook where it started
    5,172 ha reached on 21 Jul
    0.0 %

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)
21 Jul 29.6 °C 48 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
22 Jul 28.7 °C 50 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
23 Jul 29.1 °C 47 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
24 Jul 27.5 °C 44 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
25 Jul 28.0 °C 50 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
26 Jul 28.0 °C 49 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
27 Jul 28.9 °C 44 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
28 Jul 27.7 °C 46 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
29 Jul 27.5 °C 42 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
30 Jul 27.8 °C 50 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
31 Jul after 29.6 °C 43 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
1 Aug after 28.4 °C 56 % 45 km/h 0.3 mm High 27
2 Aug after 29.8 °C 53 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
3 Aug after 29.6 °C 50 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
4 Aug after 29.6 °C 53 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
5 Aug after 29.7 °C 54 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
6 Aug after 30.8 °C 47 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
7 Aug after 30.5 °C 44 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
8 Aug after 30.7 °C 45 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
9 Aug after 29.1 °C 47 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 31

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Jul 2022
After · 6 Aug 2022

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 · 157Every 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 21 July 2022 and 30 July 2022: 10 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 5,196 hectares (52.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cook (5,172 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.6 °C, humidity dropped to 42 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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

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.