This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: As the weather starts to warm in Australia, people are beginning to look ahead to the wildfire season. The national Seasonal Bushfire Outlook, released in August by the Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council, identifies areas where fire risk is expected to be higher than normal this spring, based on factors including weather, climate and fuels.
The council also emphasizes that wildfires can occur in regions with a normal seasonal outlook and that conditions can vary within these regions. All communities need to understand their local conditions and prepare early. So, how can we monitor local conditions in near real time as the season unfolds?
A new, publicly available tool from Geoscience Australia, based on satellite observations, can help by showing how vegetation moisture varies across the landscape and changes over time. The new tool uses observations from the European Space Agency's Sentinel-2 satellites to estimate fuel moisture content: the amount of water in vegetation relative to its dry weight. This influences how readily vegetation can ignite and burn.
As fuel moisture content declines, vegetation generally becomes more flammable. Below critical levels, which vary among vegetation types, it can ignite more easily, burn hotter and spread faster. Sentinel-2 detects changes in the way vegetation reflects light as it gains or loses moisture.
The new tool translates these observations into maps covering Australia at 20-meter resolution, with new observations available approximately every five days and a record extending back to 2015. What can this information tell us in practice? Let's take the Australian Capital Territory as an example.
We looked at conditions in August. In the official spring wildfire outlook, the ACT is not identified as an area of increased fire risk. However, our more detailed picture shows big variations in how dry plants are across the territory.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
