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Weather Influences Fire Making Decisions

Weather forecasting for burning operations and controlling of wild fires is a major factor in decision making for fire management.

By Department of Sustainability and Environment - 19th April 2004 - Back to News

Fire weather support staff with the Department of Sustainability and Environment play a key role in sending information to bureau meteorologists to assist in fire fighting decisions.

Technicians are responsible for setting up remote mobile weather stations that provide readings such as temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction at regular intervals. The information is automatically sent via a radio link to the Bureau of Meteorology for interpretation. Fire managers use the information to plan fire management objectives.

Weather stations can be set up in locations ahead of expected weather to indicate when wind or other climate changes may reach the fire ground. They can also be set up in locations close to the fire activity to provide an indication of local conditions.

Using equipment such as weather balloons and mobile weather stations assists meteorologists in predicting weather patterns. Fire managers use this information as a tool to plan back burning and other fire operations.

Ben Rankin, Incident Controller at Erica said that the weather has a huge impact on fire.

Source: http://gippsland.com/

Published by: news@gippsland.com

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