How long did the Cook fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 August 2023 and 6 September 2023: 9 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 7,706 hectares (77.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Cook (7,725 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 32.5 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 66 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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.

AU · Australia · 2023-08-29 → 2023-09-06

Cook fire, 29 August 2023 Cook

Out · last detection 6 Sept 2023, 03:25 UTC

The fire started on 29 August 2023 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,706 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1045th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 761 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.

Burnt area: 7,706ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 9days; 29 Aug 2023 – 6 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 29 Aug; 2023
Heat detections: 327; in a single hotspot: 75 MW
Danger at start: 32; High · FWI index
Energy released: 2.4GW; sum of detected power

Play back 6 Sept 2023

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Aug6 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

293031123456

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

The weather it burned in

32°high

66km/h · peak gust

29%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,455 ha in 2016, 2,252 ha in 2017, 2,617 ha in 2018, 528 ha in 2019, 4,784 ha in 2020, 187 ha in 2021, 1,690 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,576 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Cook where it started

7,725 ha reached on 29 Aug

0.1 %

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)
29 Aug	29.5 °C	43 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
30 Aug	31.2 °C	32 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
31 Aug	31.8 °C	29 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
1 Sept	31.7 °C	29 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
2 Sept	30.6 °C	34 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
3 Sept	30.4 °C	37 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
4 Sept	31.1 °C	36 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
5 Sept	31.5 °C	32 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
6 Sept	31.6 °C	47 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
7 Sept after	31.1 °C	58 %	55 km/h	0.7 mm	High 26
8 Sept after	32.5 °C	50 %	56 km/h	0.2 mm	High 32
9 Sept after	31.8 °C	49 %	64 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
10 Sept after	30.8 °C	47 %	66 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
11 Sept after	31.0 °C	38 %	59 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
12 Sept after	29.4 °C	44 %	64 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
13 Sept after	29.7 °C	45 %	60 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
14 Sept after	29.6 °C	42 %	62 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
15 Sept after	30.3 °C	33 %	58 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
16 Sept after	30.5 °C	34 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
17 Sept after	28.9 °C	48 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
18 Sept after	30.8 °C	42 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
19 Sept after	31.5 °C	41 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
20 Sept after	30.8 °C	54 %	46 km/h	0.6 mm	High 27
21 Sept after	33.4 °C	39 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
22 Sept after	33.8 °C	28 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 22 Aug 2023

After · 13 Sept 2023

Before After

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 · Copernicus

On 4 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 10 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak10 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1018 µg/m³

Optical depth0.26

2728293031123456789

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 327Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Australia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Cook fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 August 2023 and 6 September 2023: 9 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 7,706 hectares (77.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Cook (7,725 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 32.5 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 66 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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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.

Where it burned