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Cook fire, 18 July 2026 Cook, Aurukun, Napranum

Out · last detection 10 Aug 2026, 04:32 UTC

The fire started on 18 July 2026 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 49,808 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 102th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 33 in Australia in 2026, of 859.

Burnt area
49,808ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
23days
18 Jul 2026 – 9 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
3
local government areas
Started on
18 Jul
2026
Heat detections
1,898
in a single hotspot: 146 MW
Danger at start
22
High · FWI index
Energy released
17.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Aug 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jul9 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

181920212223242526272830311245678910

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

34°high
54km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 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: 25,772 ha in 2016, 19,639 ha in 2017, 25,521 ha in 2018, 20,089 ha in 2019, 19,602 ha in 2020, 15,583 ha in 2021, 29,826 ha in 2022, 22,043 ha in 2023, 23,573 ha in 2024, 19,348 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 49,818 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cook where it started
    33,950 ha reached on 17 Jul
    0.3 %
  2. Aurukun
    14,806 ha reached on 17 Jul
    2.0 %
  3. Napranum
    1,163 ha reached on 17 Jul
    0.6 %

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)
17 Jul 30.6 °C 24 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
18 Jul 31.5 °C 27 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
19 Jul 31.0 °C 26 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
20 Jul 30.5 °C 24 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
21 Jul 31.5 °C 28 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
22 Jul 32.8 °C 31 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
23 Jul 31.8 °C 32 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
24 Jul 32.0 °C 29 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
25 Jul 31.1 °C 27 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
26 Jul 32.8 °C 24 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
27 Jul 33.2 °C 28 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
28 Jul 31.0 °C 40 % 28 km/h 0.6 mm High 22
29 Jul 28.8 °C 51 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
30 Jul 31.0 °C 38 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
31 Jul 31.4 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
1 Aug 30.9 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Aug 29.8 °C 49 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Aug 30.4 °C 37 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Aug 30.1 °C 39 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
5 Aug 29.8 °C 39 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
6 Aug 30.5 °C 35 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
7 Aug 31.4 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
8 Aug 31.9 °C 37 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
9 Aug 32.0 °C 40 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
10 Aug after 32.3 °C 38 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
11 Aug after 33.6 °C 34 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
12 Aug after 32.8 °C 36 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
13 Aug after 32.8 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Aug after 32.4 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Aug after 31.5 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Aug after 30.9 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Aug after 31.0 °C 36 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Aug after 32.2 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 Aug after 31.2 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
20 Aug after 32.7 °C 30 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Aug after 32.7 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
22 Aug after 31.9 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
23 Aug after 32.4 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
24 Aug after 33.3 °C 31 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Aug after 33.2 °C 34 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
26 Aug after 32.8 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Jul 2026
After · 16 Aug 2026

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 22 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 56 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 21: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak56 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM1057 µg/m³
Optical depth0.57
151617181920212223242526272829303112345678910111213141516171819
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 · 1,898Every 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 18 July 2026 and 9 August 2026: 23 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 49,808 hectares (498.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Cook (33,950 ha, 0.3 %); Aurukun (14,806 ha, 2.0 %); Napranum (1,163 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.6 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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.

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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.