How long did the Cook fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 July 2026 and 14 July 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 17,156 hectares (171.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Cook (14,167 ha, 0.1 %); Aurukun (1,732 ha, 0.2 %); Napranum (1,306 ha, 0.6 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 31.0 °C, humidity dropped to 37 % and gusts hit 26 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 18, 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.

AU · Australia · 2026-07-09 → 2026-07-14

Cook fire, 9 July 2026 Cook, Aurukun, Napranum

Out · last detection 10 Jul 2026, 04:12 UTC

The fire started on 9 July 2026 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 17,156 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 377th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 165 in Australia in 2026, of 859.

Burnt area: 17,156ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 6days; 9 Jul 2026 – 14 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit: 3; local government areas
Started on: 9 Jul; 2026
Heat detections: 254; in a single hotspot: 65 MW
Danger at start: 9; Low · FWI index
Energy released: 878MW; sum of detected power

Play back 10 Jul 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Jul14 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

910

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

The weather it burned in

31°high

26km/h · peak gust

37%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 13,973 ha in 2016, 514 ha in 2017, 8,659 ha in 2018, 8,572 ha in 2019, 6,521 ha in 2020, 3,390 ha in 2021, 5,480 ha in 2022, 9,167 ha in 2023, 9,165 ha in 2024, 74 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 17,011 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Cook where it started

14,167 ha reached on 9 Jul

0.1 %
Aurukun

1,732 ha reached on 10 Jul

0.2 %
Napranum

1,306 ha reached on 9 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)
9 Jul	31.0 °C	40 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
10 Jul	30.8 °C	44 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 8
11 Jul	30.5 °C	46 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
12 Jul	30.4 °C	42 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 11
13 Jul	30.4 °C	38 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
14 Jul	29.5 °C	49 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
15 Jul after	30.5 °C	41 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
16 Jul after	30.0 °C	38 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
17 Jul after	29.0 °C	37 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
18 Jul after	29.2 °C	38 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
19 Jul after	29.2 °C	37 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
20 Jul after	28.9 °C	37 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
21 Jul after	29.5 °C	41 %	16 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
22 Jul after	29.4 °C	47 %	17 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
23 Jul after	29.6 °C	45 %	16 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 18
24 Jul after	30.0 °C	40 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
25 Jul after	29.5 °C	38 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
26 Jul after	29.5 °C	39 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
27 Jul after	29.4 °C	44 %	24 km/h	0.3 mm	High 24
28 Jul after	30.5 °C	43 %	27 km/h	0.6 mm	Moderate 17
29 Jul after	28.5 °C	53 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
30 Jul after	30.8 °C	41 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
31 Jul after	31.2 °C	31 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 2 Jul 2026

After · 21 Jul 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 22 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 56 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 20: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak56 µg/m³

Days over the guideline3 days

PM1057 µg/m³

Optical depth0.52

WHO 15

789101112131415161718192021222324

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 · 254Every 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 9 July 2026 and 14 July 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 17,156 hectares (171.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Cook (14,167 ha, 0.1 %); Aurukun (1,732 ha, 0.2 %); Napranum (1,306 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 31.0 °C, humidity dropped to 37 % and gusts hit 26 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 18, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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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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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