How long did the Cook fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 June 2024 and 16 June 2024: 12 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 6,658 hectares (66.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cook (4,108 ha, 0.0 %); Mareeba (2,619 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 32.3 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, class 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 · 2024-06-05 → 2024-06-16

Cook fire, June 2024 Cook, Mareeba

Out · last detection 16 Jun 2024, 04:38 UTC

The fire started on 5 June 2024 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,658 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 1227th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 439 in Australia in 2024, of 638.

Burnt area: 6,658ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 12days; 5 Jun 2024 – 16 Jun 2024
Municipalities hit: 2; local government areas
Started on: 5 Jun; 2024
Heat detections: 175; in a single hotspot: 39 MW
Danger at start: 30; High · FWI index
Energy released: 885MW; sum of detected power

Play back 16 Jun 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Jun16 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

5678910111213141516

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

43km/h · peak gust

29%lowest humidity

It had gone 38 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

75% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,342 ha in 2018, 1,751 ha in 2021, 402 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,009 ha that had burned before.

4,342 ha Cook fire, October 2018 35,382 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Cook where it started

4,108 ha reached on 5 Jun

0.0 %
Mareeba

2,619 ha reached on 5 Jun

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)
29 May	32.2 °C	38 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
30 May	31.5 °C	42 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
31 May	32.3 °C	43 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
1 Jun	31.1 °C	38 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
2 Jun	31.0 °C	39 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
3 Jun	30.7 °C	44 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
4 Jun	31.5 °C	39 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
5 Jun	29.3 °C	35 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
6 Jun	27.5 °C	40 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
7 Jun	28.8 °C	41 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
8 Jun	29.3 °C	39 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
9 Jun	29.6 °C	30 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
10 Jun	29.4 °C	31 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
11 Jun	29.5 °C	30 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
12 Jun	30.0 °C	29 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
13 Jun	30.5 °C	36 %	17 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
14 Jun	30.6 °C	34 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
15 Jun	29.8 °C	37 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
16 Jun	30.2 °C	35 %	17 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
17 Jun after	30.4 °C	31 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
18 Jun after	29.1 °C	32 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
19 Jun after	29.3 °C	32 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
20 Jun after	29.1 °C	40 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
21 Jun after	29.8 °C	40 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
22 Jun after	29.6 °C	43 %	31 km/h	0.1 mm	High 29
23 Jun after	31.0 °C	36 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
24 Jun after	30.3 °C	43 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
25 Jun after	31.4 °C	48 %	30 km/h	0.5 mm	High 27
26 Jun after	30.7 °C	56 %	28 km/h	0.7 mm	Moderate 20

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 29 May 2024

After · 23 Jun 2024

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 10 June 2024 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak20 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1029 µg/m³

Optical depth0.28

WHO 15

345678910111213141516171819

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 · 175Every 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 5 June 2024 and 16 June 2024: 12 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 6,658 hectares (66.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cook (4,108 ha, 0.0 %); Mareeba (2,619 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 32.3 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, class 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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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