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Cook fire, 30 September 2023 Cook

Out · last detection 14 Nov 2023, 03:30 UTC

The fire started on 30 September 2023 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 45 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 49,450 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

It is the 104th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1743 with a page). Number 94 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Cook · 2019Cook · 2021Cook · 2019Cook · 2021

Burnt area
49,450ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
45days
30 Sept 2023 – 13 Nov 2023
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
30 Sept
2023
Heat detections
2,560
in a single hotspot: 232 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
318MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Sept13 Nov
14 Nov 2023

How it evolved, day by day

30 Sept 2023 · 22 MW · 11 1 Oct 2023 · 32 MW · 11 2 Oct 2023 · 121 MW · 17 3 Oct 2023 · 42 MW · 6 4 Oct 2023 · 63 MW · 28 5 Oct 2023 · 226 MW · 55 6 Oct 2023 · 194 MW · 42 7 Oct 2023 · 374 MW · 78 8 Oct 2023 · 252 MW · 76 9 Oct 2023 · 171 MW · 55 10 Oct 2023 · 290 MW · 71 11 Oct 2023 · 413 MW · 70 12 Oct 2023 · 281 MW · 59 13 Oct 2023 · 303 MW · 45 14 Oct 2023 · 485 MW · 122 15 Oct 2023 · 478 MW · 112 16 Oct 2023 · 858 MW · 129 17 Oct 2023 · 1,292 MW · 222 18 Oct 2023 · 2,348 MW · 205 19 Oct 2023 · 641 MW · 129 20 Oct 2023 · 549 MW · 144 21 Oct 2023 · 631 MW · 121 22 Oct 2023 · 547 MW · 106 23 Oct 2023 · 582 MW · 69 24 Oct 2023 · 304 MW · 50 25 Oct 2023 · 358 MW · 70 26 Oct 2023 · 226 MW · 43 27 Oct 2023 · 249 MW · 41 28 Oct 2023 · 201 MW · 39 29 Oct 2023 · 120 MW · 21 30 Oct 2023 · 38 MW · 18 31 Oct 2023 · 108 MW · 23 1 Nov 2023 · 50 MW · 7 3 Nov 2023 · 83 MW · 16 4 Nov 2023 · 17 MW · 7 5 Nov 2023 · 43 MW · 24 6 Nov 2023 · 49 MW · 17 7 Nov 2023 · 343 MW · 43 8 Nov 2023 · 381 MW · 37 9 Nov 2023 · 40 MW · 11 10 Nov 2023 · 17 MW · 9 11 Nov 2023 · 123 MW · 37 12 Nov 2023 · 189 MW · 33 13 Nov 2023 · 108 MW · 21 14 Nov 2023 · 49 MW · 10
30 Sept 7 Oct 14 Oct 18 Oct 21 Oct 28 Oct 5 Nov 12 Nov

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
52km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 21 Nov.

This area had burned before

88% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 16,451 ha in 2016, 942 ha in 2017, 3,087 ha in 2018, 32,292 ha in 2019, 30,309 ha in 2021, 6,119 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 43,630 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 31% of the area of London (494 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Cook where it started
    49,885 ha reached on 30 Sept
    0.5 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
30 Sept 30.9 °C 38 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Oct 31.5 °C 35 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
2 Oct 30.8 °C 40 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Oct 31.8 °C 41 % 44 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
4 Oct 32.2 °C 43 % 37 km/h 0.7 mm High 26
5 Oct 34.8 °C 31 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
6 Oct 31.9 °C 44 % 37 km/h 1.6 mm Moderate 19
7 Oct 32.2 °C 37 % 47 km/h 0.4 mm High 33
8 Oct 30.7 °C 40 % 50 km/h 1.2 mm High 28
9 Oct 31.3 °C 35 % 46 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
10 Oct 34.2 °C 29 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Oct 34.3 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Oct 34.4 °C 34 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Oct 35.0 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Oct 32.2 °C 32 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Oct 31.7 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Oct 31.4 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Oct 33.7 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
18 Oct 31.7 °C 39 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
19 Oct 32.3 °C 39 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
20 Oct 31.4 °C 41 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Oct 31.1 °C 42 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
22 Oct 32.1 °C 39 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Oct 33.5 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Oct 32.5 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
25 Oct 32.7 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Oct 33.1 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Oct 33.8 °C 33 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Oct 33.9 °C 38 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Oct 31.9 °C 39 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Oct 32.3 °C 39 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Oct 32.2 °C 39 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Nov 31.7 °C 39 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
2 Nov 31.6 °C 42 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
3 Nov 32.6 °C 41 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Nov 31.7 °C 43 % 45 km/h 0.1 mm High 37
5 Nov 32.9 °C 40 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Nov 32.4 °C 41 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
7 Nov 33.3 °C 40 % 42 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
8 Nov 32.3 °C 41 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Nov 33.8 °C 35 % 45 km/h 0.4 mm High 38
10 Nov 32.5 °C 36 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Nov 33.7 °C 31 % 47 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 40
12 Nov 34.7 °C 25 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Nov 34.1 °C 25 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Nov after 32.9 °C 32 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Nov after 33.3 °C 36 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Nov after 33.7 °C 36 % 37 km/h 1.1 mm High 29
17 Nov after 32.9 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
18 Nov after 31.8 °C 41 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Nov after 32.1 °C 35 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Nov after 33.8 °C 38 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Nov after 33.7 °C 49 % 51 km/h 1.6 mm High 24

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Sept 2023
After · 20 Nov 2023

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 29 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 13 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak13 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1022 µg/m³
Optical depth0.67
2829301234567891011121314151617181920212223242526272829303112345678910111213141516
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 · 2,560Every 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 30 September 2023 and 13 November 2023: 45 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 49,450 hectares (494.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cook (49,885 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.0 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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
What do you think is wrong?

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 2,560 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.