How long did the Cook fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 June 2026 and 9 June 2026: 6 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 6,056 hectares (60.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cook (4,597 ha, 0.0 %); Mareeba (1,535 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 32.3 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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 · 2026-06-04 → 2026-06-09

Cook fire, 4 June 2026 Cook, Mareeba

Out · last detection 9 Jun 2026, 15:01 UTC

The fire started on 4 June 2026 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,056 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 1386th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 651 in Australia in 2026, of 859.

The power measured by the satellite is low (20.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 6,056ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 6days; 4 Jun 2026 – 9 Jun 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; local government areas
Started on: 4 Jun; 2026
Heat detections: 59; in a single hotspot: 20 MW
Danger at start: 28; High · FWI index
Energy released: 333MW; sum of detected power

Play back 9 Jun 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Jun9 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

56789

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

45km/h · peak gust

30%lowest humidity

It had gone 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,666 ha in 2018, 2,014 ha in 2021, 2,647 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,719 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Cook where it started

4,597 ha reached on 5 Jun

0.0 %
Mareeba

1,535 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)
4 Jun	30.3 °C	39 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
5 Jun	29.4 °C	30 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
6 Jun	28.9 °C	34 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
7 Jun	28.3 °C	33 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
8 Jun	27.9 °C	46 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
9 Jun	31.2 °C	35 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
10 Jun after	29.9 °C	45 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
11 Jun after	32.3 °C	39 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
12 Jun after	31.6 °C	37 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
13 Jun after	30.3 °C	37 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
14 Jun after	28.5 °C	45 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
15 Jun after	30.0 °C	39 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
16 Jun after	30.0 °C	37 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
17 Jun after	30.5 °C	40 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
18 Jun after	30.5 °C	35 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
19 Jun after	31.0 °C	37 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
20 Jun after	30.6 °C	35 %	21 km/h	0.1 mm	High 27
21 Jun after	30.1 °C	38 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
22 Jun after	31.2 °C	32 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
23 Jun after	30.6 °C	36 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
24 Jun after	30.0 °C	42 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
25 Jun after	30.3 °C	37 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
26 Jun after	28.4 °C	44 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 28 May 2026

After · 16 Jun 2026

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 7 June 2026 the air beside the fire reached 35 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak35 µg/m³

Days over the guideline1 day

PM1037 µg/m³

Optical depth0.29

WHO 15

2345678910111213141516171819

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 · 59Every 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 4 June 2026 and 9 June 2026: 6 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 6,056 hectares (60.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cook (4,597 ha, 0.0 %); Mareeba (1,535 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 32.3 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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.

Report an error

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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.

Where it burned