Bushfires rank among the most fearsome of
all natural disasters. They have taken a
heavy toll on Australia over the past century
and, even with increasingly reliable fire
weather warning services and sophisticated
fire prevention and firefighting infrastructure,
they have claimed more than 250 lives
over the past fifty years, with an annual
average damage bill in excess of $100 million
dollars. Although bushfires occur
throughout Australia, the greatest danger,
in terms of the risk to life and property,
occurs in the south-eastern states.
The outbreak and spread of bushfires as
well as fire management and fire-fighting
activities are strongly influenced by meteorological
conditions, and the Bureau of
Meteorology provides a wide range of fire
weather services in support of fire prevention
and fire-fighter and community safety.
These include fire danger alerts and
warnings, monitoring, advice and forecasting
services to fire management authorities,
civil defence organisations, police and
other emergency services. Bureau services
are provided in support of risk assessment,
fire management and fire-fighting
activities.
The 2001-02 Australian bushfire season
was particularly intense. During the winter-
spring period of 2001, the worst bushfires
in twenty-five years affected central
areas of the continent, and intense fire
activity in Queensland during the latter
part of 2001 made it one of the worst fire
seasons in memory for that State. The most
disastrous aspect of the 2001-02 fire season,
however, was the prolonged and widespread
bushfire outbreak in New South
Wales during the summer. As well as extensive
destruction of forest, national parks and
grassland, hundreds of buildings and vehicles
were destroyed and thousands of livestock
perished in the fires. It was one of the
most severe bushfire periods ever recorded
in New South Wales and, despite the widely
acclaimed success of the fire-fighting
operations, the damage has been estimated
in excess of seventy-five million dollars.
Throughout this extreme fire event, the
Bureau provided a high level of support to
fire-fighting services, including additional
staff for the provision of round the clock
fire weather services and out-posted liaison
support to the Rural Fire Service State
Operations Centre. The quality and timeliness
of the services provided by the Bureau
contributed to the safety of the fire fighters
and the community with not a single life
lost to fire during the thirty-day period.
The effectiveness of the Bureau’s
response to the fire-related events of the
past year has highlighted the progress of
meteorological services in Australia over
the century. These improvements have
been made possible through a sustained
investment in meteorological science and
technology. A significant part of this
investment in recent years has come about
through the transfer of forecast techniques
used during the 2000 Sydney Olympic
Games into operational use for forecasting
services, including fire weather forecasting.
During the Sydney 2000 Forecast
Demonstration Project (FDP), the Bureau
worked collaboratively with other national
meteorological agencies including those of
the United States, Canada and the United
Kingdom, to test and demonstrate the capabilities
of modern forecasting systems. The
FDP, which is part of the World
Meteorological Organization (WMO) sponsored
World Weather Research Programme
(WWRP), provided a platform for the trial,
evaluation and transfer of emerging technology
into operational forecasting guidance
systems.
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During 2001-02, the Bureau continued to
build upon the FDP initiatives through the
ongoing adoption of science and technology
and the consequent development of a
range of systems in support of timely and
accurate prediction services to the community.
These system upgrades impacted on a
range of Bureau services including marine
weather forecasting, aviation forecasting,
flood forecasting and severe weather forecasting.
These technological developments
will lead to improvements in the accuracy
and timeliness of weather prediction services,
Australia-wide.
In the years ahead, the Bureau will continue
to develop and implement improved
forecast guidance and delivery systems,
and continue to invest in the underpinning
science and technology in order to maintain
and enhance the quality and responsiveness
of its meteorological, hydrological and
oceanographic monitoring and prediction
services for the benefit of all Australians. |
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Satellite image from the United States NOAA-
12 satellite showing smoke plumes from fires
burning near and to the south of Sydney on 7
January. |
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