The New South Wales Rural Fire Service in Australia sent this interesting tweet today — an animated wildfire smoke forecast. I have not seen this distributed to the public in the United States.
After you start the video and click on the arrows at the bottom-right, it will fill the screen and you can almost read the names of the geographic features. So obviously it needs a better background map (and maybe fewer wind direction arrows that clutter the image) but it has potential for keeping the public informed about wildfire smoke.
The image above was distributed by the New South Wales Rural Fire Service, showing a map of the Gold Mine Road Fire 17 km southwest of Towamba in the Yambulla State Forest. The map is part of the agency’s Common Operating Picture.
It was apparently obtained by infrared equipment that processed the data in a format we have not seen publicly in the United States. The black lines are most likely the path of the line scanner as the mirror rotated at thousands of RPM in a fixed wing aircraft. It’s interesting that the target discrimination marks (TDMs) only appear at the ends of each line, rather than at every heat source. The intensity of the heat is represented by a range of orange and yellow colors.
The U.S. Forest Service has been mapping fires with infrared equipment for at least four decades, but the folks down under also have very advanced IR systems.
Map of the Gold Mine Fire as seen in the NSW RFS Common Operating Picture.
When 10-year Toby Douglas’ house was threatened by a bushfire in New South Wales in 2013 he made this stop-action video to help make residents aware of an app distributed by the New South Wales Rural Fire Service and of the importance of having a bushfire survival plan. Last month the video was uploaded to YouTube, garnering much attention and praise for the young filmmaker.
Firefighters in New South Wales, Australia, are battling 30 fires in their state, 17 of which are uncontrolled.
Below is an excerpt from an article at ABC news:
The Hunter region fire is burning west of Teralba on Rhondda Road behind a quarry and is sending large amounts of smoke over the area.
Paul Best from the RFS said the fire was being pushed east by westerly winds.
“People in Teralba might start seeing some embers falling and they’ll definitely be seeing smoke,” he said.
“There has been a request for aircraft and there will be some aircraft attending that fire.”
A separate bushfire in the Upper Hunter is still burning near the Goulburn River National Park, covering 25 hectares. More than 20 firefighters are on the ground fighting the blaze at Gungal, with four aircraft involved in the operation. Strong winds are producing unfavourable conditions, pushing the fire closer to the national park.
Firefighters are also battling a blaze at Budda Creek, in remote bushland within Yengo National Park, in the Hawkesbury region of Sydney. That fire had burnt more than 220 hectares, the RFS said.
There are two fires burning in a similar vicinity, started by lighting strikes from storms that went through the area yesterday.
RFS Inspector Ben Shepherd said there would be a large concentration of firefighting efforts in the Hawkesbury region in the coming weeks, with large fires burning in the area.
The NSW RFS video below is from the Budda Creek Fire near Hawkesbury.
Budda Creek Fire, Hawkesbury LGA. NSW RFS photo.
Fire Aviation has two videos of a DC-10 air tanker dropping on fires in New South Wales.
This photo was posted at about 3 p.m. MST, February 2 (U.S. time) on the Facebook page for Shane Fitzsimmons, the Commissioner of the New South Wales Rural Fire Service in Australia. The firefighters from New South Wales are flying to Western Australia for five days to help with the large fires currently burning there. The latest report is that 80,500 hectares (197,000 acres) have been burnt in the blaze near Northcliffe.
Here is how the above photo was described:
Nice to catch up with our interstate fire fighting assistance team at Sydney Airport this morning, flying out to assist their colleagues in WA. 150 fire fighters and management specialists will be in WA for next 5 days and returning home Friday. The team incorporates members from NSW RFS, FR, NPWS, Forestry and Ambulance and are partnered with their ACT colleagues. Thanks again to all involved.
A day earlier, Commissiner Fitzsimmons wrote:
NSW RFS State Operations is currently coordinating the deployment of approximately 170 Fire Fighters, Incident Management and Specialist personnel to assist colleagues in Western Australia. This team will consist of personnel from NSW (NSWRFS, FRNSW, NPWS, FCNSW & ASNSW) as well as the ACT and NT. In addition to this request received last night, we have also provided an Air Crane, 16 tonnes of foam and 44 tonnes of retardant in recent days. Thanks everyone for offering to assist, our interstate colleagues certainly appreciate it. For latest information on WA bush fires follow this link http://www.dfes.wa.gov.au/alerts/Pages/default.aspx
A CL-415 assists firefighters on the Colby Fire in January. Photo by Jeff Zimmerman.
Two men have been sentenced to several months in prison for starting the Colby Fire that threatened homes in Glendora in January, east of Los Angeles.
National Guard to train 240 soldiers to fight fires
The California National Guard is sending 240 of their members to Camp Roberts for four days of training to fight wildfires.
Should dead trees be logged after a fire?
As the U.S. Forest Service’s plans are being finalized about what to do with the thousands of acres of timber that were killed on National Forest land in the 2013 Rim Fire near Yosemite National Park, a debate is going on about whether to remove the trees or not.
