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Cook fire, 12 October 2023 Cook, Douglas

Out · last detection 6 Nov 2023, 15:29 UTC

The fire started on 12 October 2023 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 75,637 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 58th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 56 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Cook · 2017Douglas · 2021Douglas · 2021Cook · 2023

Burnt area
75,637ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
25days
12 Oct 2023 – 5 Nov 2023
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
12 Oct
2023
Heat detections
3,920
in a single hotspot: 209 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Average daily power
1.2GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Oct5 Nov
6 Nov 2023

How it evolved, day by day

12 Oct 2023 · 8 MW · 3 13 Oct 2023 · 186 MW · 32 14 Oct 2023 · 576 MW · 107 15 Oct 2023 · 2,111 MW · 194 16 Oct 2023 · 2,311 MW · 198 17 Oct 2023 · 1,085 MW · 106 18 Oct 2023 · 314 MW · 74 19 Oct 2023 · 405 MW · 88 20 Oct 2023 · 1,096 MW · 146 21 Oct 2023 · 1,398 MW · 233 22 Oct 2023 · 1,326 MW · 224 23 Oct 2023 · 884 MW · 145 24 Oct 2023 · 1,966 MW · 253 25 Oct 2023 · 3,660 MW · 445 26 Oct 2023 · 2,468 MW · 399 27 Oct 2023 · 4,527 MW · 417 28 Oct 2023 · 1,315 MW · 162 29 Oct 2023 · 592 MW · 78 30 Oct 2023 · 1,551 MW · 211 31 Oct 2023 · 864 MW · 197 1 Nov 2023 · 939 MW · 83 2 Nov 2023 · 10 MW · 2 3 Nov 2023 · 411 MW · 52 4 Nov 2023 · 19 MW · 5 5 Nov 2023 · 129 MW · 23 6 Nov 2023 · 112 MW · 20
12 Oct 16 Oct 20 Oct 24 Oct 27 Oct 28 Oct 1 Nov 5 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
67km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 21 Nov.

This area had burned before

36% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,679 ha in 2016, 10,062 ha in 2017, 1,525 ha in 2018, 4,237 ha in 2019, 6,040 ha in 2020, 11,622 ha in 2021, 520 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 26,968 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 48% of the area of London (756 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
    73,548 ha reached on 10 Oct
    0.7 %
  2. Douglas
    3,332 ha reached on 8 Oct
    1.4 %

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 area1.7 ha
Residents≈ 30

Inside the perimeter there were about 1.7 hectares of built-up land and about 30 residents (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)
8 Oct 26.9 °C 40 % 67 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Oct 26.3 °C 48 % 63 km/h 0.2 mm High 33
10 Oct 31.5 °C 29 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Oct 29.9 °C 39 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
12 Oct 28.3 °C 40 % 63 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Oct 32.7 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Oct 32.1 °C 17 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
15 Oct 30.5 °C 22 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
16 Oct 31.5 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
17 Oct 34.4 °C 15 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
18 Oct 29.0 °C 44 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Oct 28.9 °C 38 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
20 Oct 30.7 °C 36 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Oct 29.9 °C 39 % 47 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
22 Oct 32.1 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Oct 32.7 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Oct 32.4 °C 25 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
25 Oct 32.8 °C 30 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Oct 35.2 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
27 Oct 32.7 °C 25 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
28 Oct 29.7 °C 47 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
29 Oct 27.6 °C 50 % 54 km/h 0.2 mm High 32
30 Oct 30.9 °C 37 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Oct 30.7 °C 28 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Nov 32.7 °C 16 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
2 Nov 32.4 °C 25 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
3 Nov 30.8 °C 39 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Nov 31.0 °C 38 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 Nov 32.4 °C 33 % 48 km/h 0.6 mm Very high 38
6 Nov after 30.7 °C 39 % 49 km/h 0.4 mm High 37
7 Nov after 30.3 °C 44 % 50 km/h 0.8 mm High 28
8 Nov after 31.0 °C 38 % 44 km/h 0.4 mm High 33
9 Nov after 30.3 °C 42 % 51 km/h 2.1 mm Moderate 19
10 Nov after 29.7 °C 40 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
11 Nov after 30.3 °C 34 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Nov after 29.8 °C 36 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
13 Nov after 29.9 °C 34 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Nov after 30.1 °C 36 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Nov after 32.5 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Nov after 33.6 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Nov after 35.8 °C 19 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
18 Nov after 33.5 °C 23 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
19 Nov after 30.8 °C 37 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Nov after 32.1 °C 33 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Nov after 31.1 °C 51 % 53 km/h 1.9 mm Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Oct 2023
After · 12 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 26 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 95 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 40: 2.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak95 µg/m³
Days over the guideline10 days
PM10136 µg/m³
Optical depth1.46
1011121314151617181920212223242526272829303112345678
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 · 3,920Every 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 12 October 2023 and 5 November 2023: 25 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 75,637 hectares (756.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cook (73,548 ha, 0.7 %); Douglas (3,332 ha, 1.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 67 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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.

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. 3,920 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.