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Lockhart River fire, 7 September 2018 Lockhart River, Cook

Out · last detection 17 Oct 2018, 15:40 UTC

The fire started on 7 September 2018 in Lockhart River, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 42 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 36,141 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 152th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1742 with a page). Number 51 in Australia in 2018, of 924.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Cook · 2016Lockhart River · 2016Lockhart River · 2019Cook · 2026

Burnt area
36,141ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
42days
7 Sept 2018 – 18 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
7 Sept
2018
Heat detections
1,223
in a single hotspot: 90 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Average daily power
210MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Sept18 Oct
17 Oct 2018

How it evolved, day by day

7 Sept 2018 · 2 MW · 1 9 Sept 2018 · 87 MW · 8 10 Sept 2018 · 16 MW · 5 12 Sept 2018 · 18 MW · 4 13 Sept 2018 · 63 MW · 6 14 Sept 2018 · 9 MW · 5 17 Sept 2018 · 16 MW · 4 18 Sept 2018 · 109 MW · 11 19 Sept 2018 · 164 MW · 22 20 Sept 2018 · 54 MW · 10 21 Sept 2018 · 25 MW · 12 22 Sept 2018 · 207 MW · 34 23 Sept 2018 · 225 MW · 33 24 Sept 2018 · 80 MW · 32 25 Sept 2018 · 245 MW · 73 26 Sept 2018 · 345 MW · 78 27 Sept 2018 · 976 MW · 97 28 Sept 2018 · 1,071 MW · 108 29 Sept 2018 · 459 MW · 59 30 Sept 2018 · 168 MW · 47 1 Oct 2018 · 176 MW · 56 2 Oct 2018 · 286 MW · 67 3 Oct 2018 · 371 MW · 60 4 Oct 2018 · 583 MW · 104 5 Oct 2018 · 474 MW · 59 6 Oct 2018 · 218 MW · 41 7 Oct 2018 · 183 MW · 50 8 Oct 2018 · 352 MW · 54 9 Oct 2018 · 187 MW · 38 10 Oct 2018 · 87 MW · 21 11 Oct 2018 · 23 MW · 9 12 Oct 2018 · 35 MW · 7 14 Oct 2018 · 16 MW · 2 15 Oct 2018 · 31 MW · 4 17 Oct 2018 · 4 MW · 2
7 Sept 14 Sept 21 Sept 26 Sept 28 Sept 1 Oct 6 Oct 11 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
69km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone 29 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

71% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 25,824 ha in 2016, 456 ha in 2017.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 23% of the area of London (361 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

  1. Lockhart River where it started
    32,515 ha reached on 7 Sept
    9.0 %
  2. Cook
    3,835 ha reached on 23 Sept
    0.0 %

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 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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.

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)
7 Sept 29.0 °C 39 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
8 Sept 28.8 °C 39 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Sept 28.4 °C 42 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
10 Sept 28.3 °C 45 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Sept 27.0 °C 55 % 51 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 18
12 Sept 27.4 °C 50 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
13 Sept 28.4 °C 44 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
14 Sept 28.8 °C 49 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Sept 29.0 °C 48 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
16 Sept 30.4 °C 38 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
17 Sept 30.8 °C 29 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Sept 28.7 °C 39 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
19 Sept 28.7 °C 36 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Sept 29.2 °C 32 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Sept 28.5 °C 45 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
22 Sept 28.5 °C 44 % 65 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 38
23 Sept 27.8 °C 44 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Sept 27.0 °C 45 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
25 Sept 28.4 °C 39 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Sept 28.6 °C 41 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Sept 29.1 °C 35 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Sept 27.9 °C 33 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Sept 28.2 °C 35 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
30 Sept 28.6 °C 37 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
1 Oct 27.9 °C 47 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Oct 28.7 °C 42 % 69 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 Oct 28.3 °C 44 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Oct 29.9 °C 34 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
5 Oct 31.8 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Oct 31.8 °C 36 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Oct 30.9 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Oct 29.8 °C 39 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Oct 29.2 °C 42 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Oct 31.3 °C 34 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Oct 30.4 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Oct 32.3 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Oct 32.8 °C 39 % 34 km/h 0.4 mm High 32
14 Oct 30.6 °C 54 % 42 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 19
15 Oct 31.2 °C 49 % 50 km/h 0.3 mm High 25
16 Oct 31.2 °C 44 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
17 Oct 31.8 °C 32 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
18 Oct 32.0 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Oct after 31.2 °C 41 % 43 km/h 0.5 mm High 35
20 Oct after 31.5 °C 42 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
21 Oct after 33.2 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
22 Oct after 33.5 °C 34 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Oct after 32.1 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Oct after 31.8 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Oct after 30.8 °C 31 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
26 Oct after 30.1 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Oct after 32.2 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Oct after 32.8 °C 40 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Aug 2018
After · 25 Oct 2018

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 1,223Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Australia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Lockhart River fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 7 September 2018 to 18 October 2018 (42 days). The perimeter dates it from 14 September 2018 to 12 October 2018.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 36,141 hectares (361.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Lockhart River (32,515 ha, 9.0 %); Cook (3,835 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.8 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 69 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

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.

Report an error
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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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 14 September 2018 to 12 October 2018. 1,223 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 2020, 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.