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DSE Scanning The State For Bushfire Hot Spots

The Department of Sustainability and Environment has embarked on an intensive aerial surveillance campaign to identify bushfire hot spots around the state.

By DSE - 16th October 2006 - Back to News

Using sophisticated Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) equipment attached to aircraft, the department is taking advantage of the relatively calm conditions to locate smouldering hot spots from recent bushfires and old regeneration burns.

DSE’s Acting Chief Officer for Fire and Emergency Management, Liam Fogarty, said regeneration burns in logging coupes at least four months ago were now considered to be the cause of at least two bushfires in Gippsland last week, including the fire at Erica which burnt more than 600 hectares.

"It’s extraordinary, but these regeneration burns remained smouldering beneath the ground or in hollow logs during the dry winter and re-ignited in last week’s hot and blustery conditions," Mr Fogarty said.

"We also suspect that the re-ignition last week of the Murray Sunset fire that burnt more than 23,000 hectares in September was due to a smouldering Mallee root.

"At this time of the year, we would normally receive our highest monthly rainfall which would douse most hotspots carried over from autumn or winter burning. Instead, we have experienced record low rainfall and high temperatures."

Mr Fogarty said the State Aircraft Unit had already flown FLIR over 33 coupes since last Friday. FLIR units had the ability to detect heat and temperature differences as little as 0.2 degrees celsius. Fire crews or bombers were then directed to hot spots for blacking out.

"These re-ignitions highlight the difficulties we face in blacking out fires in the extremely dry conditions," he said.

"Despite the tireless efforts of crews to detect hot spots and completely extinguish them – which is the purpose of blacking out – some fires are still re-igniting months later. Blacking out is tedious and demanding work. Literally, the entire perimeter of a fire must be blacked out.

Mr Fogarty said fire crews across the state had experienced an extraordinary start to the fire season with the underlying dryness and hot conditions leading to hundreds of fires throughout Victoria.

Source: http://gippsland.com/

Published by: news@gippsland.com

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