 Behind
bringing you the fire weather each day
Under section 14 of the Fire Service
Act, the NRFA is required to monitor fire danger conditions throughout
the country. In partnership with Rural Fire Authorities and a number of
other organisations, a national network of over 150 Remote Automatic Weather
Stations has been established.
The network delivers
information on the current weather conditions. This information is used
in conjunction with the Fire Weather Index System to calculate fuel (vegetation)
moisture, and expected fire behaviour. This data is distributed to fire
managers as an aid to fire management, planning and suppression efforts.
This information is based on the 12:00 NZST weather readings (1pm daylight
savings time). The earlier fire managers receive warnings of potentially
hazardous situations, the better prepared they will be.
Servicing the
Awatere Valley RAWS
(Click for a larger version)
Weather readings are
collected every day. Of the 150 weather stations around 100 need to be
dialled directly by telephone modem to collect the data. The rest of the
data is supplied by New Zealand's MetService (one station monitoring the
Manukau Heads area
is independently owned and managed). Each call can typically take anywhere
between 30 seconds and 2 minutes.
This information is used
to:
- Provide rural
fire decision support
- Guide rural
fire prevention
- Assist in preparedness
planning
- Predict potential
fire behaviour
- Assist in risk
assessment
- Analyse seasonal
fire danger trends
- Meet the requirements
of the Forest and Rural Fires Act 1977
The new fire weather system will provide
the following benefits:
- More timely information
- More accurate information
- Lower operational and support costs
- Fulfil our legal obligations
- Provide for better decision-making
The NRFA maintains its
own system for collecting, storing and distributing fire weather data.
Until 1996, an application built around Fire Weather Plus (an early version
of Weather Pro) was used. This was not an automated system and required
an operator to be present throughout the summer to collect the data and
fax reports.
In 1996 a fully automated
system was built which made use of the "fledgling" Internet
by distributing reports by e-mail and posting it on the NRFA's new Web
site. Faxes were also automated but were phased out as the Internet provided
a cheaper, more reliable mechanism for distribution.
After over six years
of operation, the fire weather information provided by the NRFA could
hardly be described as "state of the art". This coupled with
impending obsolescence and reliability issues made for a compelling business
case for the development of a new system. It's only natural that we should
look overseas at existing successful develpments.
We found that in Canada
where the Canadian Forest Service had developed a mapping system (called
sFMS - Spatial Fire Management System) that created maps of all the FWI
components using the daily data. This is running not only in Canadian
provinces but as projects in Mexico and South East Asia. SFMS is an ArcView
GIS application that uses Anusplin's thin-plate spline interpolation programs
with a methodology developed by Landcare Research specifically for New
Zealand's topography.
The British Columbia
Ministry of Forests are responsible for an area the size of New Zealand
and have around 200 fire weather stations they monitor daily. They have
an existing system built for their staff to provide them with access to
the data and tools for querying and manipulating the data. This system
is not available to the public and is accessed by authorised users through
RURALnet.
New Zealand is now able
to share in the core of these systems by pooling our resources as well
as making use of their expertise in developing specific enhancements for
our situation.
Even with an ever increasing network
of weather stations, the Fire Weather Monitoring System will be able provide
the basis for monitoring fire danger conditions throughout the country
for some years to come.
For more information, contact  Karl
Baker at the National Rural Fire Authority.
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