Using modern satellite technology and experienced fire specialists, it is possible to make predictions about the severity of the coming fire season.
A series of seasonal bushfire assessment workshops have taken place this year following the success of earlier meetings that have addressed the potential for bushfires to occur.
As part of the Bushfire CRC Fire Weather and Fire Danger project, a seasonal bushfire assessment workshop was held again this year, the reports produced from this are available on the Bushfire CRC site.
The goal of the workshops is to estimate the fire potential for the forthcoming season. Fire potential is defined as:
"The chance of a fire or number of fires occurring of such size, complexity or other impact (e.g. biodiversity or global emissions) which requires resources (from both a pre-emptive management and suppression capability) beyond the area in which it or they originate."
This is not simply a function of the weather or climate. Rather the potential for a significant fire situation is the sum of factors that includes weather and climate, fuel abundance and availability, recent fire history and fire-fighting resources available in an area.
Summary of outlook
Above normal fire potential is expected over most of the south-east of Australia in the coming months. For the first time, all of Victoria, south-eastern New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, and the southern areas of South Australia are rated by fire and land management agencies as having such a high level of fire potential for the bushfire season.
Bushfire CRC scientists at the Bureau of Meteorology have worked with fire managers around Australia to evaluate the fire potential of the upcoming season for the southern parts of Australia and combined this with predictions made earlier for the northern bushfire season.
The result is the Bushfire map Fire Potential Outlook for Australia 2009-2010 available on the BushfireCRC website that shows which areas are above, below or in-line with the normal fire potential for this time of year.
