Fire scar maps timely for bushfire season
19 November 2012: Queensland scientists have come to the aid of fire controllers, park rangers and local councils as they gear up for what could be one of the biggest bushfire seasons in Queensland for decades.
Department of Science, Information Technology, Innovation and the Arts
Red alert: the red areas show a week of fires in September 2011. The fire scars were mapped on top of Landsat satellite imagery. (View a larger version.)
Dr Christine Williams, Assistant Director-General Department of Science, Information Technology, Innovation and the Arts (DSITIA), said her department’s scientists had produced new maps of forest and woodland density and also groundcover that showed changes in green and dry vegetation across the state over time.
“We’ve also developed an innovative method to map the extent of past bushfires using NASA’s Landsat satellite imagery that is attracting national interest,” Dr Williams said.
“Our bushfire datasets provide a lot of information about which areas were burnt and how often over the past 12 years. Combine them with our new vegetation maps and we understand bushfire risk much better.
“Learning all we can about the location, frequency, intensity and timing of bushfires helps us understand how fires have shaped and will continue to shape our landscape,” she said.
Dr Williams said the vegetation maps were available now and they aimed to release fire scar datasets for the past 12 years for South East Queensland and the Burdekin Catchment in December 2012 and for the entire state in early 2013.
“The datasets highlight how some northern regions burn year after year in the late dry season while other areas had not had a bushfire in years.
“They show a mosaic of burning over the past decade and draw attention to some critical fire management issues in Queensland,” Dr Williams said.
“After 3 successive wet seasons followed by a dry spell, we’ve built up a large fuel load in our forests, woodlands, parks and reserves. Unfortunately this means serious fire risk across Queensland for the next few months, and we are not taking this threat lightly,” she said.
Dr Williams said the mapping work would contribute greatly to the ongoing development of fire management plans and risk assessments and allow government agencies to focus resources where they were needed most.
DSITIA Principal Scientist (Remote Sensing) Dan Tindall said Landsat satellites had captured more than 70,000 images of Queensland over the past 25 years, at a good resolution.
“Landsat’s 30-metre pixel resolution allows us to map most fires larger than an average paddock,” Mr Tindall said.
“And now that we can freely download Landsat imagery from the United States Geological Survey web portals, we are faster and more efficient in detecting and reporting changes in the Queensland landscape—including bushfires,” he said.
Mr Tindall said researchers from the Australian Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN), regional natural resource management groups and emergency managers met on 16 November at the Ecosciences Precinct in Brisbane to discuss the fire mapping products.
“The meeting focused on how to use the datasets to assess fire risk and fuel loads. We also discussed any refinement needed,” he said.
TERN was set up in 2010 when a consortium of scientists and governments around the nation felt there was a need for a more detailed picture of ecological changes in Australia over time. The agencies involved monitor terrestrial environments and the effects of land clearing, natural disasters, and the spread of animal pests and weeds.
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Media contacts: Anthony Brown (07) 3234 0719 or Julie Wissmann (07) 3234 0789
