Forest Fire Occurrence and Modeling in Southeastern Australia

Abstract

Forest fire is one of the major environmental disturbances for the Australian continent. Identification of occurrence patterns of large fires, fire mapping, determination of fire spreading mechanisms, and fire effect modeling are some of the best measures to plan and mitigate fire effects. This chapter describes fire occurrence in New South Wales (Australia), the Australian National Bushfire Model Project (ANBMP), fire propagation modeling methods, the McArthur's model and current forest fire modeling approaches in the state of New South Wales of Australia. Among the established fire models, PHOENIX Rapidfire predicts fire spread and facilitates loss and damage assessments as the model considers many environmental and social variables. Two fire spread models, SPARK and Amicus, have been developed and facilitated fire spread mapping and modeling in Australia.

Defensible Spaces and Home Ignition Zones of Wildland-Urban Interfaces in the Fire-prone Areas of the World

“…The W-UI is extensive in the USA, Canada, Argentina, Greece, Australia, France, and South Africa [4][5][6]. Residential lots built in the WUI take up much more space than houses built in urban areas, a key feature of the W-UI, since low-density housing is more expensive to maintain.…”

Forest fire spatial modelling using ordered weighted averaging multi-criteria evaluation

“…Natural or anthropogenic forest fire is a ponderous threat with irreversible damage and deep ecological and socio-economic impacts, especially in tropical forests, and its negative impacts could sometimes last more than one decade (Alexandridis et al 2008;Artés et al 2014;Rahman et al 2018). Forest fires seriously threaten the sustainability and environmental services of these ecosystems (Hong et al 2018), profoundly change the structure of vegetation and biodiversity (Bengtsson et al 2000;Gandhi et al 2001), increase absolute carbon storage (Healey et al 2014), and endanger species composition (Moretti et al 2004).…”

Essays in spatial statistics

“…Anthropogenic factors may also exhibit influences on fire, directly by starting and managing fires or indirectly through anthropologically driven climate changes (ALDERSLEY; MURRAY; CORNELL, 2011). In Australian ecosystems, fire plays an important role, influencing and determining the vegetation, due to factors such as floral composition, topography, and climate (RAHMAN et al, 2018). In the savannahs of northern Australia, intense fires dominate whereas massive fires in the arid zone occur after periods with above-average rainfall, with relatively less frequency.…”