Photos of smoke as an aid to reporting and locating fires

A couple of recent incidents have highlighted the usefulness of photos of smoke that include the skyline for fixing the locations of fires, providing the photos are taken from known points.

Yesterday morning Geoff S sent me a photo from his location, showing the smoke from two fires in the Hills, both of which had been identified the previous day. This photo included the skyline view as well as Mt Cross, and, surprisingly, was more useful in accurately locating the fires and their extent than the bearings he was able to provide.  Here's a reduced version of the photo he sent (the original was about 3 Mb and so was able to be enlarged significantly for better identification of locations).  Even with this reduced size and definition you can see the smoke in the background beyond Mt Cross (the conical hill on the skyline), and another in the middle-ground behind a ridge.

The location and extent of the smoke in the middle-ground led us to recognise the possibility that this was not the permitted burn that had been reported as the likely source of the smoke the previous day.

As a result I contacted a local Smokespotter, Anton G, and he went as close as he could on his quad bike, and returned to report that it seemed to be well within the National Park.  I then contacted QPWS to advise them of my suspicions that this was not the permitted burn that we had previously reported.  They had already seen the earlier emails, including the one with this photo, and had despatched a fire crew to the area.  By the time I contacted them the crew was already engaging the fire and another crew was on the way.

KP also sent me a photo of smoke from her location a few weeks ago and it proved to be very useful in coming to grips with that fire too.

In fact, the photo behind the title of this blog was taken during the September 2009 fire that burned out a lot of the Hills south of Seventeen Mile Road.  It was taken after the fire had been burning for a couple of days, and shows the fire just moving south into the Lilydale Creek catchment.  This photo indicated that properties in that catchment were now at risk from this fire, particularly as it was to the west of most of them and they were thus vulnerable to any westerly wind that came up.

So, if you see smoke and conditions are right to take a photo of the smoke that clearly shows landscape features (Mt Perseverance and Mt Cross are particularly useful), and you are able to give us a precise location for the point from which the photo was taken, please email the photo and the location to me or to KP (along with the bearings if you have your compass with you).  I've added our email addresses to the Coordinators tab above.

Do not MMS the photo to any of my mobile phone numbers or to KP's.  Not only do I not use this service, but it would also require me to transfer the photo to my computer to be able to enlarge it enough to be useful.  Please also phone the Coordinator you send it to with a report on the smoke, as we do not constantly monitor our emails.

You don't need to be a Smokespotter to email photos of smoke sightings in the Hills, and do not need to have a compass bearing.  What the Smokespotters group strives for is the earliest possible reporting of fires.  Once an approximate location for the smoke has been received, the Coordinators can try to find Smokespotters who have views of the smoke to provide cross-bearings that will fix its precise location.