Evaluating US Wildland Fire Spread/Behaviour Simulations for Fire Risk Assessment Applying Coupled Weather-Topographical-Fuel Datasets Derived from Remote Sensing

Wildland fires are a part of the American and Australian way of life, and the economic, environmental and personal costs experienced from ildland fires are significant. The International Association of Wildland Fire Board of Directors in the US has recognised the recent assessments and consensus of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that considers the prospective impacts of climate change on wildland fire to be a significant scientific and management priority for this century. Scientific reports related to climate change and wildfires occurrence indicate that fire-related impact is very likely to increase drastically and catastrophically within the century. For example, studies in the US, Australia and Europe revealed that climatological variables (eg. increases in temperature and decreases in relative humidity) are increasing the number of days of high and extreme fire danger (based on the energy release component index). Wildland fires require appropriate management, forecast, planning and response in event of the disaster. The recent catastrophic and tragic wildland fires in California (eg. October 2007 Southern California fires) and Australian wildland fires (eg 2006 Grampians fire, the Long Plain Range complex fire of February 2007, Canberra fire of 2003 and the 2002 Sydney fires) are clear indications that the occurrence of wildland fires is increasing.

Keywords:

wildland fire spread simulation , wildland fire risk assesment , fuel models , GIS , remote sensing , natural disasters and hazards