Cook fire, 25 June 2023 Cook
The fire started on 25 June 2023 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,983 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 621th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 463 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.
- Burnt area
- 11,983ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 25 Jun 2023 – 29 Jun 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 25 Jun
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 355
- in a single hotspot: 140 MW
- Danger at start
- 24
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 698MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 13 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: 3,183 ha in 2016, 1,430 ha in 2017, 300 ha in 2018, 1,072 ha in 2019, 3,030 ha in 2020, 5,457 ha in 2021, 1,663 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,119 ha that had burned before.
- 3,006 ha Cook fire, September 2020 11,009 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 288 ha Cook fire, October 2018 5,209 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 80 ha Cook fire, October 2021 8,759 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 72 ha Cook fire, August 2019 5,233 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3 ha Cook fire, October 2016 15,049 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Cook where it started12,020 ha reached on 19 Jun0.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 Jun | 29.3 °C | 51 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 20 Jun | 30.5 °C | 47 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 21 Jun | 29.8 °C | 49 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 22 Jun | 28.9 °C | 61 % | 46 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 25 |
| 23 Jun | 29.4 °C | 55 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 24 Jun | 30.2 °C | 57 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 25 Jun | 30.2 °C | 48 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 26 Jun | 30.5 °C | 50 % | 63 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 27 Jun | 30.4 °C | 48 % | 59 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 28 Jun | 29.8 °C | 52 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 29 Jun | 31.1 °C | 43 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 30 Jun after | 30.0 °C | 46 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 1 Jul after | 31.5 °C | 46 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 2 Jul after | 30.1 °C | 56 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 3 Jul after | 30.5 °C | 58 % | 34 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 26 |
| 4 Jul after | 30.5 °C | 60 % | 33 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 23 |
| 5 Jul after | 31.5 °C | 54 % | 37 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 25 |
| 6 Jul after | 31.8 °C | 50 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 7 Jul after | 30.8 °C | 51 % | 46 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 28 |
| 8 Jul after | 29.8 °C | 55 % | 51 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 30 |
| 9 Jul after | 28.5 °C | 61 % | 55 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 30 |
| 10 Jul after | 29.6 °C | 50 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 11 Jul after | 29.3 °C | 56 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 12 Jul after | 30.4 °C | 47 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 13 Jul after | 28.7 °C | 57 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 27 June 2023 the air beside the fire reached 13 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 355Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 101,112 haCook12 September 2023 · 71 days · 9 km away
- 44,517 haCook23 May 2026 · 22 days · 23 km away
- 25,983 haCook3 October 2025 · 19 days · 25 km away
- 36,141 haLockhart River14 September 2018 · 29 days · 31 km away
- 107,293 haCook10 November 2016 · 45 days · 35 km away
- 46,995 haCook25 September 2023 · 10 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Cook fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 June 2023 and 29 June 2023: 5 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 11,983 hectares (119.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Cook (12,020 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 43 % and gusts hit 63 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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
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.