- Title:
-
New Zealand Seasonal Wildfire Assessment 2010-2011: Summary
- Date:
- December 2010
- Organisations
- BCRC
- Authors:
- Location:
- Australia, Australia
Overview
A La Niña event became firmly established over Winter 2010 and is expected to continue through to Autumn 2011. As a consequence, the fire season in western parts of both the North and South islands will be challenging unless significantly higher than normal rains are delivered over Summer. Conversely some of the eastern parts of the North Island are expecting a less demanding fire season.
These expectations summarise the views of the attendees at the New Zealand Seasonal Wildfire Assessment Workshop, held in Christchurch on 7 December 2010. This workshop was organised by the Bushfire CRC and facilitated by Mark Chladil, of the Tasmanian Fire Service. It brought fire managers and researchers, meteorologists and climatologists together to evaluate the fire potential for the coming season.
This process has been conducted by the Bushfire CRC for Australian fire seasons annually since 2006. This assessment may surprise people who associate La Niña conditions with rain, not understanding that significant fires may happen before season-ending rains occur. Fire Potential depends on multiple factors.
The stage is set by the antecedent rainfall. This is important for estimating the fuel amounts and growth, as well as determining the timing of the drying or curing of the fuel. The climate outlook for the next few months is a crucial factor. Of particular interest are the future tendencies of equatorial Pacific sea surface temperature associated with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, an important climate driver over New Zealand. Other, less quantifiable factors, such as the distribution and readiness of fire-fighting resources, are also considered. The participants at the workshop discussed these factors to obtain the consensus outlook presented here.
