Cook fire, 1 August 2026 Cook
The fire started on 1 August 2026 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,909 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 1178th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 532 in Australia in 2026, of 859.
The power measured by the satellite is low (29.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 6,909ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 10days
- 1 Aug 2026 – 10 Aug 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 1 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 172
- in a single hotspot: 29 MW
- Danger at start
- 20
- Moderate · FWI index
- Energy released
- 1.2GW
- 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 23 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,734 ha in 2016, 384 ha in 2017, 2,030 ha in 2019, 1,492 ha in 2020, 2,545 ha in 2021, 4,077 ha in 2022, 160 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,158 ha that had burned before.
- 890 ha Cook fire, August 2019 11,217 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 609 ha Cook fire, September 2016 5,557 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 160 ha Cook fire, November 2025 9,530 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 29 ha Cook fire, September 2021 16,703 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Cook where it started6,967 ha reached on 1 Aug0.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Aug | 27.6 °C | 48 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 2 Aug | 27.3 °C | 50 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 3 Aug | 26.9 °C | 46 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 4 Aug | 26.8 °C | 47 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 5 Aug | 26.7 °C | 47 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 6 Aug | 27.4 °C | 43 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 7 Aug | 28.4 °C | 42 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 8 Aug | 27.5 °C | 50 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 9 Aug | 28.1 °C | 51 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 10 Aug | 30.6 °C | 43 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 21 |
| 11 Aug after | 29.6 °C | 48 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 12 Aug after | 28.2 °C | 57 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 13 Aug after | 29.0 °C | 53 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 14 Aug after | 27.9 °C | 53 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 15 Aug after | 27.0 °C | 47 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 16 Aug after | 25.8 °C | 53 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 17 Aug after | 26.9 °C | 44 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 18 Aug after | 28.0 °C | 39 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 19 Aug after | 28.0 °C | 45 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 20 Aug after | 28.2 °C | 42 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 21 Aug after | 28.4 °C | 42 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 22 Aug after | 27.6 °C | 42 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 23 Aug after | 27.8 °C | 39 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 24 Aug after | 28.1 °C | 45 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 25 Aug after | 29.9 °C | 47 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 26 Aug after | 30.9 °C | 40 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 27 Aug after | 29.8 °C | 45 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
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 31 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 12 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 · 172Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 17,076 haCook8 October 2021 · 37 days · 13 km away
- 16,703 haCook27 September 2021 · 28 days · 14 km away
- 49,450 haCook30 September 2023 · 45 days · 16 km away
- 25,979 haCook19 September 2019 · 35 days · 19 km away
- 12,285 haCook15 October 2016 · 21 days · 21 km away
- 27,408 haCook30 September 2024 · 27 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Cook fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 August 2026 and 10 August 2026: 10 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 6,909 hectares (69.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Cook (6,967 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 30.6 °C, humidity dropped to 42 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, 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.
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.