A collaborative research project is improving the data accessible by aerial firefighters to locate nearby water sources.
During active bushfires, aerial firefighting units are dispatched by members of the National Aerial Firefighting Centre (NAFC) through an online system called Arena. NAFC members use a variety of data sources to find suitable nearby water sources for firefighting helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. It is critical for effective decision making that the most current and accurate data about the location of water is available as quickly as possible.
The Identifying water sources for aerial firefighting project is a collaboration between NAFC/AFAC, Natural Hazards Research Australia, Geoscience Australia (GA) and FrontierSI that is improving the reliability and clarity of information about water bodies by adding recently observed water and currency attributes to datasets used by firefighters.
The research team comprises researchers Dr Caitlin Adams, Madeleine Seehaber, Dr Fang Yuan and Roshni Sharma from FrontierSI, alongside key end-users Sandra Whight and project manager Anthony Gallacher from NAFC, and Norman Mueller and Bex Dunn from Geoscience Australia. Sam Ferguson, AFAC and Danielle Wright, VIC CFA provided additional sector and technical advice to the team.
CEO of Natural Hazards Research Australia, Andrew Gissing, highlighted the benefit of collaborative research when advancing Australia’s bushfire planning technology. ‘This project is a great example of ways that we can work together to serve emergency management and the community through high-impact research,’ he said. ‘The project team from Natural Hazards Research Australia, NAFC, GA and FrontierSI have delivered new scientific knowledge that is actionable and useful in keeping our communities safe from bushfire.’
The first phase of this project – now complete – focused on extending an earlier proof-of-concept project developed through the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC. An interactive user-needs workshop, hosted by FrontierSI in February 2023, gathered perspectives from several key emergency management agencies across Australia on the ways they currently use waterbody datasets and how these datasets might be improved for bushfire pre-planning decisions. Users provided insights into new information and software requirements, operational suitability and additional waterbody attributes (such as waterbody features, dataset currency, surrounding environment and biosecurity risks) that would strengthen the relevance and accuracy of existing waterbody datasets.
Using the earlier proof-of-concept product and this new user information, the project team – managed by Anthony Gallacher at NAFC – has delivered a method to augment GA’s Digital Earth Australia satellite-based data products with latest water-availability information to meet the needs of NAFC’s Arena system, implemented in a prototype workflow that can be adopted by GA to improve the current product.
This presents a significant improvement to the accuracy of agencies’ knowledge about nearby water, providing critical support to disaster management planning, to facilitate rapid and effective bushfire response. Whereas previously the data about nearby waterbodies might have been months or years old, now this information is updated regularly and can be easily accessed.
This prototype workflow can now be implemented by NAFC and GA to (i) identify aircraft-accessible water bodies, (ii) contribute to aircraft selection and allocation based on access to water, (iii) contribute to efficient use of aircraft and (iv) provide information to air desks, air bases and air crews to assist in their situational awareness and decision making.
Anthony Gallacher highlighted the ways in which this project will increase the chances of protecting communities and landscapes from fire. ‘Not only do these results provide a pathway forward for NAFC to develop a waterbodies solution to suit the needs of NAFC and sector agencies but they also equip GA with recommendations and a prototype workflow for wider application, which provides exciting opportunities for the sector and beyond to harness this data,’ he said.
This project has successfully identified and implemented user-driven improvements to the Digital Earth Australia waterbodies product, including several recommendations to NAFC and GA provided in the project’s final report. Implementation and deployment of this improved data will help users plan the placement of aircraft for future fire seasons.
Find out more about this project and read the final report (including recommendations) at www.naturalhazards.com.au/research/waterbodies-aerial-firefighting
This article first appeared in Fire Australia, Issue 3, 2023.
About the Author
Bethany Patch, Natural Hazards Research Australia
