Cook fire, 30 August 2026 Cook
The fire started on 30 August 2026 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,752 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 1473th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 718 in Australia in 2026, of 876.
The power measured by the satellite is low (29.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Cook · 2018Cook · 2020Cook · 2017Cook · 2016
- Burnt area
- 5,752ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 15days
- 30 Aug 2026 – 13 Sept 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 30 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 123
- in a single hotspot: 30 MW
- Danger at start
- 28
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 72MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,838 ha in 2016, 14 ha in 2017, 2,145 ha in 2018, 2,394 ha in 2020, 661 ha in 2021, 1,457 ha in 2022, 148 ha in 2023, 2,373 ha in 2024, 348 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,568 ha that had burned before.
- 2,137 ha Cook fire, September 2018 7,040 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,087 ha Cook fire, November 2020 5,289 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 14 ha Cook fire, December 2017 7,057 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
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 started5,797 ha reached on 31 Aug0.0 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 Aug | 27.5 °C | 44 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 31 Aug | 27.6 °C | 46 % | 57 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 29 |
| 1 Sept | 25.8 °C | 60 % | 50 km/h | 1.6 mm | Moderate 11 |
| 2 Sept | 28.0 °C | 46 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 3 Sept | 28.1 °C | 52 % | 46 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 4 Sept | 27.3 °C | 47 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 5 Sept | 29.1 °C | 46 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 6 Sept | 29.7 °C | 44 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 7 Sept | 30.6 °C | 32 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 8 Sept | 29.3 °C | 53 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 9 Sept | 28.9 °C | 52 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 10 Sept | 27.1 °C | 61 % | 50 km/h | 0.6 mm | High 22 |
| 11 Sept | 27.9 °C | 47 % | 58 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 29 |
| 12 Sept | 27.3 °C | 56 % | 52 km/h | 1.3 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 13 Sept | 27.9 °C | 45 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 14 Sept after | 27.1 °C | 53 % | 53 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 26 |
| 15 Sept after | 27.1 °C | 53 % | 50 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 26 |
| 16 Sept after | 28.5 °C | 41 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 17 Sept after | 28.0 °C | 35 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 18 Sept after | 28.3 °C | 38 % | 68 km/h | 0.5 mm | Very high 41 |
| 19 Sept after | 26.5 °C | 49 % | 65 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 36 |
| 20 Sept after | 27.2 °C | 45 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 21 Sept after | 27.4 °C | 47 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 22 Sept after | 27.3 °C | 55 % | 47 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 26 |
| 23 Sept after | 28.1 °C | 52 % | 52 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 28 |
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 August 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 · 123Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 12,285 haCook12 October 2016 · 24 days · 16 km away
- 16,703 haCook20 September 2021 · 40 days · 17 km away
- 16,455 haCook16 December 2017 · 16 days · 31 km away
- 17,076 haCook1 October 2021 · 44 days · 34 km away
- 49,450 haCook30 September 2023 · 45 days · 38 km away
- 25,979 haCook14 September 2019 · 40 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Cook fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 August 2026 to 13 September 2026 (15 days). The perimeter dates it from 31 August 2026 to 13 September 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,752 hectares (57.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Cook (5,797 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 30.6 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Start date: 31 August 2026 → 30 August 2026.
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
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 31 August 2026 to 13 September 2026. 123 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.
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.