Ahead of Australia’s impending bushfire season, researchers are working hard to put spatially-informed predictions at the fingertips of firefighters.
Researchers at The University of Western Australia (UWA) are developing a new touchscreen device that can be mounted in a fire truck to help firefighters predict where and when a bushfire will spread. The tablet-based solution is an extension of UWA’s simulation software known as Australis. The solution, which will be available on high-end tablets, aims to provide accurate predictions of fire behaviour more rapidly than current methods.
Unlike, CSIRO’s modelling software Spark which is designed for emergency management decision makers in control centres, the UWA solution aims to put critical fire information in the firefighters’ hands.
“Having the Australis fire prediction technology will enable first-responders to…create appropriate firefighting and evacuation strategies.”
The Australis system analyses comprehensive geospatial data in real time including geographical topography, vegetation types, fire prone hotspots, time since last burn, rate of spread, fuel accumulation and forecasted weather.
Without internet connectivity, it can accurately predict where the fire could be from 30 minutes to 24 hours into the future.
Professor George Milne from UWA’s School of Computer Science and Software Engineering said the technology could protect lives, homes, crops and livestock in Western Australia’s bushfire prone areas.
Prof George Milne shows off a working model of the solution.
“Having the Australis fire prediction technology in the cab of a fire truck or a farmer’s ute will enable first-responders to get the best information necessary to create appropriate firefighting and evacuation strategies,” Professor Milne said.
“This can happen in the very early stages of a bushfire, when time-critical responses are required.”
Professor Milne said the touchscreen device would complement the Aurora system used by the Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES) which currently runs the simulator from one central location for all fires in WA.
“On a day where there are several bushfires across the state, it may take too long to predict each individual fire’s progress using a single system in the central headquarters,” Professor Milne said.
“The advantage to local brigades with access to this technology is that it will give them location-specific information about which communities are at risk and which need to be evacuated.”
Funding is still required to get the technology off the ground and made available to local bushfire brigades.
