How long did the Cook fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 July 2026 to 4 September 2026 (38 days). The perimeter dates it from 29 July 2026 to 31 August 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,733 hectares (67.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Cook (6,838 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 32.4 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, class Very 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 · 2026-07-29 → 2026-09-04

Cook fire, 29 July 2026 Cook

Out · last detection 5 Sept 2026, 15:54 UTC

The fire started on 29 July 2026 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 38 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,733 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1210th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 565 in Australia in 2026, of 876.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Cook · 2021 Cook · 2018 Cook · 2023 Cook · 2018

Burnt area: 6,733ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 38days; 29 Jul 2026 – 4 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 29 Jul; 2026
Heat detections: 277; in a single hotspot: 58 MW
Danger at start: 29; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 40MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Jul4 Sept

Play back 5 Sept 2026

How it evolved, day by day

30 Jul 31 Jul 5 Aug 10 Aug 15 Aug 20 Aug 28 Aug

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

48km/h · peak gust

20%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 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: 6,501 ha in 2018, 5,463 ha in 2021, 974 ha in 2022, 5,170 ha in 2023, 34 ha in 2024, 364 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,769 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 4.3% of the area of London (67 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

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 started

6,838 ha reached on 30 Jul

0.1 %

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 2025

Built-up area0.18 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.18 hectares of 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)
24 Jul	31.4 °C	22 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
25 Jul	28.5 °C	26 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
26 Jul	28.4 °C	35 %	17 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
27 Jul	29.6 °C	33 %	16 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
28 Jul	24.5 °C	61 %	38 km/h	0.4 mm	Moderate 19
29 Jul	27.2 °C	45 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
30 Jul	29.0 °C	35 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
31 Jul	29.8 °C	20 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
1 Aug	28.4 °C	42 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
2 Aug	27.4 °C	48 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
3 Aug	27.5 °C	40 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
4 Aug	27.6 °C	38 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
5 Aug	28.0 °C	37 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
6 Aug	28.3 °C	35 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
7 Aug	29.9 °C	30 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
8 Aug	29.0 °C	39 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
9 Aug	29.6 °C	41 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
10 Aug	30.9 °C	39 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
11 Aug	31.4 °C	39 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
12 Aug	30.9 °C	39 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
13 Aug	32.3 °C	34 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
14 Aug	29.7 °C	36 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
15 Aug	28.3 °C	35 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
16 Aug	28.2 °C	35 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
17 Aug	27.4 °C	37 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
18 Aug	30.5 °C	23 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
19 Aug	28.6 °C	40 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
20 Aug	28.5 °C	37 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
21 Aug	30.0 °C	29 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
22 Aug	29.9 °C	30 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
23 Aug	29.1 °C	34 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
24 Aug	30.5 °C	35 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
25 Aug	31.5 °C	37 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
26 Aug	32.2 °C	31 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
27 Aug	32.4 °C	32 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
28 Aug	30.6 °C	35 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
29 Aug	29.0 °C	36 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
30 Aug	27.9 °C	39 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
31 Aug	28.1 °C	33 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
1 Sept	27.6 °C	43 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
2 Sept	29.1 °C	36 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
3 Sept	29.7 °C	35 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
4 Sept	29.4 °C	37 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
5 Sept after	30.6 °C	31 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
6 Sept after	31.0 °C	26 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
7 Sept after	29.8 °C	36 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
8 Sept after	32.8 °C	29 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
9 Sept after	30.7 °C	37 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
10 Sept after	29.9 °C	40 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
11 Sept after	29.0 °C	35 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
12 Sept after	30.3 °C	34 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
13 Sept after	30.4 °C	34 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
14 Sept after	29.9 °C	35 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
15 Sept after	30.1 °C	34 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
16 Sept after	31.2 °C	24 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 22 Jul 2026

After · 11 Sept 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 10 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 24 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak24 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1026 µg/m³

Optical depth0.41

WHO 15

2223242526272829303112345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031123456789

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 · 277Every 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?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 July 2026 to 4 September 2026 (38 days). The perimeter dates it from 29 July 2026 to 31 August 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,733 hectares (67.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Cook (6,838 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 32.4 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, class Very 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

RSS Changes to this page

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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What do you think is wrong?

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What really happened?

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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.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 29 July 2026 to 31 August 2026. 277 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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