The objective of this project is to develop a GIS-based, nested,
and dynamic spatial model to enable the prediction of the dynamic
spatial patterns of fire front progress and fire destruction caused
by a bushfire as it moves through a rural- urban interface, drawing
on knowledge developed within Program D1on the relative risk at
individual house level in regard to its location and proximity to
sheds, fences, vegetation, ground-cover, firewood-heaps,
rubbish-bins and any other objects that contribute to fuel load in
the rural-urban interface.
Since much of the risk to a house is heavily influenced by its
surrounding objects, including other houses, it is logical to
extend the single house model to that of its immediate
neighbourhood and then its embedding suburb within the rural-urban
interface.
Such an extension will make the model not only appropriate for
supporting a range of broad scale, fire-protection and
fire-reduction related logistic decisions, but also useful for town
planning and building regulation assessment.
The predicted fire tracks and the resultant fire destruction
patterns will be presented in probabilistic terms. Weather regimes,
the vegetation distribution in the rural-urban interface zone, and
the effects of human factors, such as the actions likely taken by
building owners or by fire service crew will be taken into account
in the initialization and calibration of the model. Once built,
such a model can be used to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of
alternative fire protection strategies and the associated fire
destruction scenarios.
