Cook fire, 27 July 2022 Cook
The fire started on 27 July 2022 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 25,681 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 228th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 38 in Australia in 2022, of 566.
- Burnt area
- 25,681ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 20days
- 27 Jul 2022 – 15 Aug 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 27 Jul
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 65
- in a single hotspot: 31 MW
- Danger at start
- 22
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 236MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
84% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 8,446 ha in 2016, 5,663 ha in 2017, 12,475 ha in 2018, 1,744 ha in 2019, 9,424 ha in 2020, 1,898 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 21,693 ha that had burned before.
- 8,699 ha Cook fire, July 2018 12,804 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,429 ha Cook fire, July 2020 14,918 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,449 ha Cook fire, September 2017 9,599 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 204 ha Cook fire, October 2017 6,329 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 54 ha Cook fire, July 2019 7,192 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Cook where it started25,791 ha reached on 11 Aug0.2 %
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 | 31.1 °C | 43 % | 30 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 22 |
| 22 Jul | 30.6 °C | 45 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 23 Jul | 30.0 °C | 52 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 24 Jul | 29.6 °C | 48 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 25 Jul | 30.5 °C | 41 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 26 Jul | 30.1 °C | 46 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 27 Jul | 30.7 °C | 44 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 28 Jul | 29.3 °C | 46 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 29 Jul | 30.6 °C | 46 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 30 Jul | 29.4 °C | 53 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 31 Jul | 30.3 °C | 49 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 1 Aug | 28.4 °C | 60 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 2 Aug | 30.1 °C | 56 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 3 Aug | 29.2 °C | 57 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 4 Aug | 31.9 °C | 48 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 5 Aug | 32.9 °C | 44 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 6 Aug | 34.1 °C | 33 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 7 Aug | 33.1 °C | 41 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 8 Aug | 32.5 °C | 42 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 9 Aug | 32.1 °C | 43 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 10 Aug | 30.0 °C | 41 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 11 Aug | 30.2 °C | 41 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 12 Aug | 29.5 °C | 47 % | 40 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 32 |
| 13 Aug | 31.8 °C | 37 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 14 Aug | 31.9 °C | 40 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 15 Aug | 32.1 °C | 40 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 16 Aug after | 31.9 °C | 35 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 17 Aug after | 31.3 °C | 19 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 18 Aug after | 29.7 °C | 34 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 19 Aug after | 30.6 °C | 34 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 20 Aug after | 31.3 °C | 33 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 21 Aug after | 31.2 °C | 34 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 22 Aug after | 29.6 °C | 48 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 23 Aug after | 32.8 °C | 37 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 24 Aug after | 32.6 °C | 35 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 25 Aug after | 31.7 °C | 45 % | 49 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 36 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 65Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Cook fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 July 2022 and 15 August 2022: 20 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 25,681 hectares (256.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Cook (25,791 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.1 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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
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
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.