Cook fire, 8 June 2026 Cook
The fire started on 8 June 2026 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 32 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 56,227 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 86th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 26 in Australia in 2026, of 859.
- Burnt area
- 56,227ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 32days
- 8 Jun 2026 – 9 Jul 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 8 Jun
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 1,419
- in a single hotspot: 221 MW
- Danger at start
- 7
- Low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 14.4GW
- 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 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,483 ha in 2016, 9,969 ha in 2017, 28,354 ha in 2018, 23,923 ha in 2019, 3,419 ha in 2020, 16,795 ha in 2021, 10,280 ha in 2022, 14,352 ha in 2023, 5,302 ha in 2024, 2,191 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 53,987 ha that had burned before.
- 25,502 ha Cook fire, September 2018 54,407 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,519 ha Cook fire, November 2023 8,672 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,956 ha Cook fire, December 2019 6,162 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,267 ha Cook fire, October 2021 12,624 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,871 ha Cook fire, October 2025 70,397 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 942 ha Cook fire, June 2023 5,276 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 146 ha Cook fire, December 2019 6,824 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 8 ha Cook fire, September 2023 46,995 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Cook where it started56,553 ha reached on 8 Jun0.5 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 Jul | 28.5 °C | 41 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 10 Jul after | 28.2 °C | 49 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 11 Jul after | 29.4 °C | 42 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 12 Jul after | 28.6 °C | 41 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 13 Jul after | 27.4 °C | 42 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 14 Jul after | 28.5 °C | 44 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 11 |
| 15 Jul after | 28.4 °C | 40 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 16 Jul after | 27.5 °C | 38 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 17 Jul after | 27.4 °C | 30 % | 15 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 18 Jul after | 27.2 °C | 35 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 19 Jul after | 27.0 °C | 40 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 20 Jul after | 27.4 °C | 30 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
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 14 June 2026 the air beside the fire reached 28 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 · 1,419Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 13,076 haCook 14 October 2026 · 11 days · 6 km away
- 54,407 haCook30 September 2018 · 30 days · 10 km away
- 59,999 haCook 15 September 2026 · 40 days · 23 km away
- 20,786 haCook22 September 2023 · 54 days · 28 km away
- 13,575 haCook17 September 2018 · 13 days · 38 km away
- 25,547 haCook12 September 2025 · 25 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Cook fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 June 2026 and 9 July 2026: 32 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 56,227 hectares (562.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Cook (56,553 ha, 0.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 28.5 °C, humidity dropped to 41 % and gusts hit 21 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 7, class Low.
- 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.