Cook fire, 17 October 2025 Cook, Lockhart River
The fire started on 17 October 2025 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 17,731 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 365th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 239 in Australia in 2025, of 1124.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 17,731ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 26days
- 17 Oct 2025 – 11 Nov 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- local government areas
- Started on
- 17 Oct
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 481
- in a single hotspot: 83 MW
- Danger at start
- 15
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 157MW
- 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 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 15 Nov.
This area had burned before
95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 9,850 ha in 2016, 468 ha in 2017, 9,584 ha in 2018, 979 ha in 2019, 9,248 ha in 2020, 3,460 ha in 2021, 6,852 ha in 2022, 7,393 ha in 2023, 1,754 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 16,824 ha that had burned before.
- 8,840 ha Lockhart River fire, September 2018 36,141 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,553 ha Lockhart River fire, September 2020 5,907 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,667 ha Cook fire, November 2016 107,293 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,129 ha Cook fire, June 2023 11,983 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,406 ha Cook fire, November 2020 9,184 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,016 ha Cook fire, October 2023 7,265 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 974 ha Cook fire, September 2023 101,112 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 339 ha Cook fire, October 2016 6,888 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 started11,616 ha reached on 18 Oct0.1 %
-
6,190 ha reached on 19 Oct1.7 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 Oct | 30.9 °C | 53 % | 59 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 18 Oct | 30.9 °C | 55 % | 50 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 19 Oct | 33.0 °C | 40 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 20 Oct | 32.7 °C | 45 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 21 Oct | 32.0 °C | 37 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 22 Oct | 32.4 °C | 39 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 23 Oct | 32.4 °C | 39 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 24 Oct | 33.3 °C | 38 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 25 Oct | 33.6 °C | 44 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 26 Oct | 33.8 °C | 51 % | 45 km/h | 1.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 27 Oct | 34.9 °C | 40 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 28 Oct | 35.5 °C | 40 % | 36 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 24 |
| 29 Oct | 34.9 °C | 47 % | 34 km/h | 3.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 30 Oct | 34.5 °C | 48 % | 37 km/h | 1.4 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 31 Oct | 35.3 °C | 41 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 1 Nov | 34.8 °C | 42 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 2 Nov | 34.4 °C | 48 % | 48 km/h | 0.6 mm | High 23 |
| 3 Nov | 34.0 °C | 46 % | 42 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 22 |
| 4 Nov | 34.1 °C | 47 % | 48 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 23 |
| 5 Nov | 33.9 °C | 44 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 6 Nov | 33.7 °C | 48 % | 46 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 26 |
| 7 Nov | 34.2 °C | 41 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 8 Nov | 34.1 °C | 40 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 9 Nov | 34.2 °C | 40 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 10 Nov | 35.2 °C | 38 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 11 Nov | 34.8 °C | 45 % | 33 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 26 |
| 12 Nov after | 33.8 °C | 44 % | 30 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 26 |
| 13 Nov after | 33.5 °C | 50 % | 46 km/h | 0.7 mm | High 24 |
| 14 Nov after | 32.9 °C | 52 % | 46 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 24 |
| 15 Nov after | 33.3 °C | 52 % | 38 km/h | 1.5 mm | Moderate 15 |
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 11 November 2025 the air beside the fire reached 27 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 481Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 101,112 haCook5 September 2023 · 85 days · 15 km away
- 44,517 haCook17 May 2026 · 28 days · 15 km away
- 36,141 haLockhart River7 September 2018 · 42 days · 16 km away
- 107,293 haCook7 November 2016 · 48 days · 20 km away
- 29,369 haLockhart RiverNovember 2019 · 34 days · 30 km away
- 25,547 haCook12 September 2025 · 30 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Cook fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 17 October 2025 to 11 November 2025 (26 days). The perimeter dates it from 17 October 2025 to 10 November 2025.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 17,731 hectares (177.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cook (11,616 ha, 0.1 %); Lockhart River (6,190 ha, 1.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 37 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, 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 · 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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 17 October 2025 to 10 November 2025. 481 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.
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.