A real-time computer application for the prediction of fire spread across the Australian landscape

Abstract

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) Forestry and Forest Products has developed a PC-based fire spread prediction application that can be used by fire control officers as an aid in strategic planning and resource allocation. This computer application, called Siro Fire, is a DOS protected mode application that incorporates several fire spread models that can be applied to the two major fuel types found in Australia-grass and forest. It uses GIS-derived geographic maps and digital elevation models to calculate the probable spread of a fire across the landscape and displays the results on a graphical representation of the map of the area of concern. The application is being used in the South Australian Country Fire Service as both an operational and training tool. This paper outlines the evolution of previous fire spread simulation software, the development of SiroFire and how SiroFire carries out fire spread simulations using existing fire spread prediction algorithms.