Cook fire, 11 October 2023 Cook, Aurukun
The fire started on 11 October 2023 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 35 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 113,118 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 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.
Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:
It is the 29th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 24 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Aurukun · 2022Cook · 2016Cook · 2020Cook · 2022
- Burnt area
- 113,118ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 35days
- 11 Oct 2023 – 14 Nov 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- local government areas
- Started on
- 11 Oct
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 4,703
- in a single hotspot: 960 MW
- Danger at start
- 37
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.2GW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.7 mm on 27 Nov.
This area had burned before
87% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 43,783 ha in 2016, 30,444 ha in 2017, 16,992 ha in 2018, 29,528 ha in 2019, 21,120 ha in 2020, 8,135 ha in 2021, 63,210 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 98,157 ha that had burned before.
- 31,401 ha Aurukun fire, August 2022 79,582 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 15,459 ha Cook fire, October 2016 26,910 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 13,343 ha Cook fire, July 2020 14,918 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 12,543 ha Cook fire, July 2022 25,681 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 9,814 ha Cook fire, July 2018 12,804 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,752 ha Cook fire, September 2017 9,599 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,073 ha Cook fire, July 2016 6,042 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,286 ha Cook fire, July 2019 7,192 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Cook where it started97,231 ha reached on 5 Oct0.9 %
-
16,452 ha reached on 19 Oct2.2 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Oct | 34.9 °C | 33 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 5 Oct | 36.4 °C | 26 % | 41 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 42 |
| 6 Oct | 34.6 °C | 37 % | 42 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 41 |
| 7 Oct | 33.5 °C | 32 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 8 Oct | 32.5 °C | 38 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 9 Oct | 34.1 °C | 30 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 10 Oct | 35.1 °C | 29 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 11 Oct | 36.2 °C | 23 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 12 Oct | 35.3 °C | 33 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 13 Oct | 36.6 °C | 25 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 14 Oct | 36.8 °C | 15 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 15 Oct | 36.2 °C | 18 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 16 Oct | 37.3 °C | 20 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 17 Oct | 37.7 °C | 15 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 18 Oct | 35.4 °C | 30 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 19 Oct | 34.3 °C | 31 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 20 Oct | 35.4 °C | 28 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 21 Oct | 36.6 °C | 26 % | 40 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 46 |
| 22 Oct | 36.8 °C | 24 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 23 Oct | 38.3 °C | 15 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 24 Oct | 38.6 °C | 19 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 25 Oct | 36.8 °C | 20 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 26 Oct | 37.2 °C | 24 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 27 Oct | 38.0 °C | 21 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 28 Oct | 36.0 °C | 33 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 29 Oct | 34.8 °C | 32 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 30 Oct | 35.6 °C | 30 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 31 Oct | 36.9 °C | 24 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 1 Nov | 36.2 °C | 23 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 2 Nov | 37.6 °C | 21 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 3 Nov | 37.1 °C | 25 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 4 Nov | 35.8 °C | 33 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 5 Nov | 36.9 °C | 24 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 6 Nov | 36.4 °C | 29 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 7 Nov | 36.7 °C | 31 % | 38 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very high 47 |
| 8 Nov | 36.4 °C | 28 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 9 Nov | 36.6 °C | 30 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 10 Nov | 36.5 °C | 28 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 11 Nov | 36.3 °C | 24 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 12 Nov | 35.9 °C | 24 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 13 Nov | 36.7 °C | 21 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 14 Nov | 37.5 °C | 21 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 15 Nov after | 37.1 °C | 19 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 16 Nov after | 37.8 °C | 20 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 17 Nov after | 38.8 °C | 19 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 18 Nov after | 38.2 °C | 25 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 19 Nov after | 36.5 °C | 26 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 20 Nov after | 37.4 °C | 24 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 21 Nov after | 36.8 °C | 38 % | 53 km/h | 0.8 mm | High 36 |
| 22 Nov after | 36.2 °C | 41 % | 46 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 38 |
| 23 Nov after | 35.3 °C | 40 % | 53 km/h | 0.5 mm | Very high 40 |
| 24 Nov after | 37.7 °C | 31 % | 42 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 42 |
| 25 Nov after | 37.8 °C | 29 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 26 Nov after | 38.0 °C | 31 % | 30 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very high 38 |
| 27 Nov after | 39.2 °C | 26 % | 38 km/h | 3.7 mm | High 28 |
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 14 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 74 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.2 times the WHO daily 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 · 4,703Every 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 11 October 2023 and 14 November 2023: 35 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 113,118 hectares (1,131.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cook (97,231 ha, 0.9 %); Aurukun (16,452 ha, 2.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.8 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, class Extreme.
- 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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 4,703 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.
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.