Cook fire, 1 July 2026 Cook
The fire started on 1 July 2026 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,529 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 1531th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 738 in Australia in 2026, of 859.
- Burnt area
- 5,529ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 14days
- 1 Jul 2026 – 14 Jul 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 1 Jul
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 104
- in a single hotspot: 40 MW
- Danger at start
- 7
- Low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 413MW
- 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
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,856 ha in 2016, 104 ha in 2018, 5,125 ha in 2019, 1,021 ha in 2021, 4,501 ha in 2022, 3,789 ha in 2023, 34 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,524 ha that had burned before.
- 5,125 ha Cook fire, September 2019 25,979 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,471 ha Cook fire, October 2022 9,129 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,524 ha Cook fire, September 2023 49,450 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 664 ha Cook fire, October 2021 17,076 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 91 ha Cook fire, August 2016 5,364 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 36 ha Cook fire, September 2021 7,969 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 30 ha Cook fire, August 2022 6,889 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Cook where it started5,578 ha reached on 1 Jul0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 Jul | 28.4 °C | 41 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 10 Jul | 28.5 °C | 50 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 11 Jul | 28.2 °C | 50 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 12 Jul | 27.1 °C | 50 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 13 Jul | 27.1 °C | 46 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 11 |
| 14 Jul | 28.5 °C | 41 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 11 |
| 15 Jul after | 29.1 °C | 38 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 16 Jul after | 28.2 °C | 33 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 17 Jul after | 27.4 °C | 31 % | 20 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 18 Jul after | 27.2 °C | 32 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 19 Jul after | 27.1 °C | 41 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 20 Jul after | 27.0 °C | 30 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 21 Jul after | 28.5 °C | 41 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 22 Jul after | 28.0 °C | 50 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 23 Jul after | 28.5 °C | 47 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 24 Jul after | 28.1 °C | 41 % | 20 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 5 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 14 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 · 104Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 25,979 haCook19 September 2019 · 35 days · 6 km away
- 17,076 haCook8 October 2021 · 37 days · 11 km away
- 49,450 haCook30 September 2023 · 45 days · 12 km away
- 27,408 haCook30 September 2024 · 27 days · 28 km away
- 15,193 haCook16 November 2016 · 26 days · 34 km away
- 16,703 haCook27 September 2021 · 28 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Cook fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 July 2026 and 14 July 2026: 14 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 5,529 hectares (55.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Cook (5,578 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 28.5 °C, humidity dropped to 41 % and gusts hit 23 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 11, class Moderate.
- 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.