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Cook fire, 12 September 2025 Cook

Out · last detection 6 Oct 2025, 03:58 UTC

The fire started on 12 September 2025 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 25,547 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 231th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 146 in Australia in 2025, of 1124.

Burnt area
25,547ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
25days
12 Sept 2025 – 6 Oct 2025
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
12 Sept
2025
Heat detections
1,049
in a single hotspot: 100 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
7.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Oct 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Sept6 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

121415161920222324252627282930123456

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
63km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone 50 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 12 Oct.

This area had burned before

91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 22,533 ha in 2016, 725 ha in 2018, 143 ha in 2019, 1,885 ha in 2020, 1,811 ha in 2021, 1,044 ha in 2022, 183 ha in 2023, 572 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 23,323 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cook where it started
    25,658 ha reached on 12 Sept
    0.2 %

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)
12 Sept 31.8 °C 42 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Sept 29.5 °C 51 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Sept 29.2 °C 49 % 63 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
15 Sept 30.1 °C 42 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
16 Sept 32.2 °C 41 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
17 Sept 30.7 °C 62 % 52 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 16
18 Sept 30.2 °C 62 % 59 km/h 2.0 mm Moderate 13
19 Sept 30.9 °C 49 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
20 Sept 31.0 °C 51 % 48 km/h 0.3 mm High 26
21 Sept 32.0 °C 48 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
22 Sept 32.8 °C 41 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
23 Sept 30.5 °C 55 % 49 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 17
24 Sept 30.0 °C 43 % 63 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Sept 30.1 °C 42 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Sept 30.3 °C 40 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Sept 31.7 °C 42 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
28 Sept 32.9 °C 43 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
29 Sept 32.6 °C 45 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
30 Sept 33.8 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Oct 34.4 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Oct 34.9 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Oct 33.7 °C 46 % 44 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
4 Oct 32.5 °C 46 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Oct 31.3 °C 41 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
6 Oct 31.1 °C 43 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Oct after 29.2 °C 63 % 55 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 16
8 Oct after 30.0 °C 63 % 55 km/h 0.4 mm High 22
9 Oct after 32.6 °C 49 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
10 Oct after 32.9 °C 54 % 47 km/h 0.3 mm High 28
11 Oct after 31.8 °C 45 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
12 Oct after 31.1 °C 57 % 46 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Sept 2025
After · 13 Oct 2025

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 1 October 2025 the air beside the fire reached 32 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak32 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1035 µg/m³
Optical depth0.32
101112131415161718192021222324252627282930123456789
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 · 1,049Every 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 September 2025 and 6 October 2025: 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 25,547 hectares (255.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cook (25,658 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.9 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 63 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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

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.

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.