How long did the Cook fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 September 2023 and 25 October 2023: 47 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 39,189 hectares (391.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Cook (34,571 ha, 0.3 %); Mapoon (4,622 ha, 8.6 %); Napranum (31 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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 · 2023-09-09 → 2023-10-25

Cook fire, 9 September 2023 Cook, Mapoon, Napranum

Out · last detection 26 Oct 2023, 04:27 UTC

The fire started on 9 September 2023 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 47 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 39,189 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

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 136th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 125 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.

Burnt area: 39,189ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 47days; 9 Sept 2023 – 25 Oct 2023
Municipalities hit: 3; local government areas
Started on: 9 Sept; 2023
Heat detections: 1,780; in a single hotspot: 114 MW
Danger at start: 41; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 10.0GW; sum of detected power

Play back 26 Oct 2023

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Sept25 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

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

The weather it burned in

37°high

62km/h · peak gust

21%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,338 ha in 2016, 9,226 ha in 2017, 28,310 ha in 2018, 12,650 ha in 2020, 14,681 ha in 2021, 6,227 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 36,890 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Cook where it started

34,571 ha reached on 9 Sept

0.3 %
Mapoon

4,622 ha reached on 25 Sept

8.6 %
Napranum

31 ha reached on 13 Sept

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)
9 Sept	33.9 °C	39 %	60 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
10 Sept	32.3 °C	42 %	60 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
11 Sept	32.4 °C	31 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
12 Sept	30.5 °C	40 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
13 Sept	31.1 °C	40 %	54 km/h	0.3 mm	Very high 44
14 Sept	30.6 °C	39 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
15 Sept	30.4 °C	32 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
16 Sept	31.3 °C	34 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
17 Sept	30.7 °C	41 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
18 Sept	32.1 °C	31 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
19 Sept	33.4 °C	34 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
20 Sept	32.3 °C	46 %	44 km/h	2.0 mm	Moderate 18
21 Sept	35.4 °C	31 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
22 Sept	35.4 °C	22 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
23 Sept	32.5 °C	33 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
24 Sept	31.8 °C	41 %	51 km/h	0.4 mm	Very high 42
25 Sept	33.8 °C	31 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
26 Sept	33.7 °C	33 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
27 Sept	33.9 °C	32 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
28 Sept	32.5 °C	40 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
29 Sept	32.4 °C	42 %	62 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 46
30 Sept	31.8 °C	39 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
1 Oct	32.7 °C	37 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
2 Oct	33.7 °C	38 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
3 Oct	34.8 °C	32 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
4 Oct	33.9 °C	39 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
5 Oct	36.0 °C	29 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
6 Oct	32.5 °C	46 %	44 km/h	2.0 mm	Moderate 19
7 Oct	34.3 °C	33 %	50 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 39
8 Oct	32.3 °C	36 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
9 Oct	32.9 °C	37 %	47 km/h	0.1 mm	High 37
10 Oct	35.7 °C	30 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
11 Oct	33.6 °C	31 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
12 Oct	30.6 °C	55 %	54 km/h	3.0 mm	Moderate 14
13 Oct	34.1 °C	38 %	45 km/h	0.5 mm	High 30
14 Oct	36.1 °C	21 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
15 Oct	35.8 °C	24 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
16 Oct	35.5 °C	28 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
17 Oct	36.7 °C	24 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
18 Oct	35.3 °C	30 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
19 Oct	33.9 °C	42 %	45 km/h	0.9 mm	High 30
20 Oct	35.2 °C	27 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
21 Oct	36.0 °C	28 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
22 Oct	36.4 °C	26 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
23 Oct	36.5 °C	21 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
24 Oct	37.0 °C	22 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
25 Oct	35.5 °C	30 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
26 Oct after	36.2 °C	30 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
27 Oct after	36.7 °C	31 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
28 Oct after	35.7 °C	38 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
29 Oct after	34.7 °C	33 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
30 Oct after	33.5 °C	39 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
31 Oct after	36.3 °C	30 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
1 Nov after	35.7 °C	31 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
2 Nov after	36.5 °C	26 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
3 Nov after	36.4 °C	30 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
4 Nov after	34.8 °C	33 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
5 Nov after	36.8 °C	28 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
6 Nov after	35.2 °C	35 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 2 Sept 2023

After · 1 Nov 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 20 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 25 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak25 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1037 µg/m³

Optical depth0.55

WHO 15

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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 · 1,780Every 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 9 September 2023 and 25 October 2023: 47 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 39,189 hectares (391.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Cook (34,571 ha, 0.3 %); Mapoon (4,622 ha, 8.6 %); Napranum (31 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned