Cook fire, 25 August 2025 Cook
The fire started on 25 August 2025 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,469 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 481th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 312 in Australia in 2025, of 1124.
- Burnt area
- 14,469ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 25 Aug 2025 – 31 Aug 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 25 Aug
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 563
- in a single hotspot: 77 MW
- Danger at start
- 37
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 4.2GW
- sum of detected power
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.
This area had burned before
80% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,612 ha in 2016, 117 ha in 2017, 3,179 ha in 2018, 1,760 ha in 2019, 158 ha in 2020, 5,019 ha in 2021, 2,712 ha in 2022, 2,223 ha in 2023, 1,316 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 11,636 ha that had burned before.
- 3,435 ha Cook fire, September 2021 5,960 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 211 ha Cook fire, December 2016 7,845 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 123 ha Cook fire, July 2021 34,038 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 42 ha Cook fire, October 2021 32,872 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Cook where it started14,562 ha reached on 25 Aug0.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Aug | 32.1 °C | 40 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 26 Aug | 32.8 °C | 31 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 27 Aug | 33.4 °C | 34 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 28 Aug | 33.7 °C | 37 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 29 Aug | 35.7 °C | 29 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 30 Aug | 34.1 °C | 31 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 31 Aug | 32.2 °C | 37 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 1 Sept after | 32.5 °C | 32 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 2 Sept after | 31.4 °C | 38 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 3 Sept after | 33.4 °C | 36 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 4 Sept after | 33.1 °C | 43 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 5 Sept after | 32.0 °C | 51 % | 52 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 34 |
| 6 Sept after | 33.4 °C | 41 % | 64 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 7 Sept after | 31.3 °C | 54 % | 69 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 8 Sept after | 32.6 °C | 37 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 9 Sept after | 32.9 °C | 38 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 10 Sept after | 33.8 °C | 33 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 11 Sept after | 35.8 °C | 27 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 12 Sept after | 34.5 °C | 32 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 13 Sept after | 32.0 °C | 40 % | 47 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 40 |
| 14 Sept after | 31.8 °C | 40 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
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 28 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 72 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 34: 2.2 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 · 563Every 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 25 August 2025 and 31 August 2025: 7 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 14,469 hectares (144.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Cook (14,562 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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
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
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.