Bush and Forest Fires in Australia

25 January 2000


The Satellite Remote Sensing Services Department of Land Administration (DOLA) routinely evaluates the NOAA AVHRR satellite sensor to detect and locate vegetation fires and high-temperature events. In Australia hot events depicted by the satellite can represent wildfires or prescribed fires as well as industrial activities (e.g., gas flares, smelters) and hot surfaces (e.g., rocks heated by solar radiation during the daytime overpasses of the satellite). Thus, DOLA displays two products of hot spot maps: the automatically generated high-temperature event maps (which include false alarms) and the manually generated fire maps. All hotspot locations are geo-referenced and where required as Australian Map Grid. On some days up to four NOAA-AVHRR passes are used to identify hot events.

The manual method (human operator) provides greater accuracy however it takes longer. Thus, the issue of the manually generated fire maps is delayed (not real-time). Hot spots are located using NOAA-AVHRR channel 3 on early morning (0050-0340hrs) and mid morning (0450-0630hrs) images.

click here to enlarge (55 KB)

Fig.1. Fire Detection Map for Australia for 25 January 2000 overlaid on a pan-Australian vegetation cover map.
Source fire coordinates: Satellite Remote Sensing Services Department of Land Administration (DOLA)
Source of vegetation and fuel type map: Luke and McArthur (1977)
(Please take into account, that this presentation represents mainly fire events from Western Australia and Northern Territories)

The Department of Natural Resources and Environment is responsible for the management of fire prevention and suppression on public lands in Victoria. The last updated bushfire statistic of 25 January 2000 shows 19 controlled fires. The locations of these fires are displayed in the statewide fire situation map below.

click here to enlarge (32 KB)

Fig.2. Statewide Fire Situation Map of Victoria, 25 January 2000
(Source: NRE)

As fire restrictions apply during the fire season, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology/South Australian Regional Office issued on 25 January 2000 a

FIRE BAN ADVICE FOR SOUTH AUSTRALIA.

In the list below the fire ban districts and the fire danger rating for these districts are described more detailed:

Northwest Pastoral

very high

Northeast Pastoral 

very high

West Coast

high to very high

Eastern Eyre Peninsula

high

Lower Eyre Peninsula

high

Flinders

high to very high

Mid North

high to very high

Mount Lofty Ranges

high

Adelaide Metropolitan

high

Yorke Peninsula

high

Kangaroo Island

high

Riverland

high to very high

Murraylands

high to very high

Upper South East

high to very high

Lower South East

high

For the up-to-date fire weather information of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology refer to http://www.bom.gov.au/weather/.

Please have also a look on a list of links for information on Australian Fire Management Agencies:

Australasian Fire Authorities Council
http://www.ausfire.com/
The home page of the Australasian Fire Authorities Council coordinates the diverse range of activities of the different australian agencies concerned about fire

Firebreak
http://msowww.anu.edu.au/~barling/firebreak/firebreak.html
The firebreak newsletter provides a very extensive homepage with information about fire fighting in Australia, downloadable java scripts for calculating fire weather and various links to related sites

The Department of Natural Resources and Environment in Victoria
http://www.nre.vic.gov.au/fires/index.htm
The Department of Natural Resources and Environment in Victoria offers a very comprehensive web site with information on fire management. In their web site   current reports are provided with statistics on the fire season. Extensive background information is included along with several links to related web sites.

Satellite Remote Sensing Services Department of Land Administration (DOLA)
http://www.rss.dola.wa.gov.au/apps/firewatch.html
The Satellite Remote Sensing Services (SRSS) of the Department of Land Administration provides near real time hot spot detection and burned scar mapping for western Australia. In the Firewatch project the SRSS detects hotspots throughout Western Australia using the thermal channel of the NOAA AVHRR sensor on a daily basis.

For more informations on Australia go to the IFFN country files.

 


Top
Back