Australia:The 1991/92 Fire Season in Victoria (IFFN No. 8 – January 1993)
The 1991/92 Fire Season in Victoria
(IFFN No. 8 – January 1993, p. 5)
In Victoria the 1991/92 fire season was quiet with 14,000 ha burnt, being only 10% of the 10 year average. The 1992/93 fire season commenced late, in December.The Department of Conservation and Natural Resources has implemented, along with almost all bushfire agencies in Australia, the Australian Interagency Incident Management System (AIIMS), to assist in managing fire incidents which involve multiple agencies.Other activities have included:
- classifying fire hazard. especially bark and shrub fuels in relation to a recognised scale of difficulty of fire control;
- developing fire equipment, including aerial incendiary devices, foam proportioners, and a fuel moisture meter;
- developing prescriptions for reducing fuels in young eucalypt regrowth where the understorey fuels are elevated and hazardous;
- studying the effects of fuel reduction burning on the ecology of forests (plants, animals, nutrients etc.);
- automating the transfer of infrared data from the Department’s multi-spectral scanner to fire headquarters in real time.
From: Andrew Wilson
Senior Fire Research Officer
Address:
Fire Management Branch
Department of Conservation and Natural Resources
P.O. Box 41
AUS-East Melbourne, Victoria 3002
Fax: +61-3-6289454
