Cook fire, 25 August 2026 Cook
The fire started on 25 August 2026 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,345 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 953th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 422 in Australia in 2026, of 859.
The power measured by the satellite is low (22.2 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
- 8,345ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 14days
- 25 Aug 2026 – 7 Sept 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 25 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 149
- in a single hotspot: 22 MW
- Danger at start
- 35
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 656MW
- 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 47 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: 290 ha in 2016, 1,462 ha in 2017, 4,090 ha in 2018, 1,649 ha in 2019, 3,635 ha in 2020, 1,562 ha in 2021, 2,610 ha in 2022, 2,916 ha in 2023, 655 ha in 2024, 4,804 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,062 ha that had burned before.
- 3,759 ha Cook fire, July 2025 6,394 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,751 ha Cook fire, September 2023 39,189 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,325 ha Cook fire, September 2018 47,313 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,229 ha Cook fire, July 2020 12,021 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Cook where it started8,344 ha reached on 25 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Aug | 32.5 °C | 40 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 26 Aug | 32.5 °C | 42 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 27 Aug | 33.0 °C | 39 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 28 Aug | 32.8 °C | 39 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 29 Aug | 31.1 °C | 40 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 30 Aug | 30.5 °C | 39 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 31 Aug | 30.5 °C | 39 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 1 Sept | 32.1 °C | 36 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 2 Sept | 30.8 °C | 41 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 3 Sept | 32.6 °C | 36 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 4 Sept | 31.5 °C | 44 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 5 Sept | 32.5 °C | 34 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 6 Sept | 32.6 °C | 36 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 7 Sept | 33.5 °C | 32 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 8 Sept after | 34.0 °C | 32 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 9 Sept after | 32.3 °C | 46 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 10 Sept after | 30.7 °C | 42 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 11 Sept after | 29.8 °C | 44 % | 60 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 12 Sept after | 31.5 °C | 38 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 13 Sept after | 31.1 °C | 42 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 14 Sept after | 32.0 °C | 36 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 15 Sept after | 32.2 °C | 35 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 16 Sept after | 32.2 °C | 35 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 17 Sept after | 32.6 °C | 37 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
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 29 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 23 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 · 149Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 39,189 haCook9 September 2023 · 47 days · 9 km away
- 47,313 haCook20 September 2018 · 48 days · 13 km away
- 36,941 haCook23 August 2018 · 48 days · 21 km away
- 74,396 haCook29 October 2016 · 45 days · 38 km away
- 38,082 haCook14 October 2022 · 44 days · 39 km away
- 28,712 haCook18 July 2026 · 14 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Cook fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 August 2026 and 7 September 2026: 14 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 8,345 hectares (83.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Cook (8,344 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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
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.