Introducing fire-relevant websites: the Google Australia Crisis Map

During the recent NSW bushfires Google extended their Crisis Map coverage to Australia.  There is a site which provides an overview map of Australia, currently showing information for five states (including Queensland), and a NSW map showing fire and some emergency events for that state.  The NSW site appears to be a beta site at present.

Similar icons used for Qld and NSW.  Some 'other emergency' information for NSW (the white icon).  All icons are clickable to retrieve basic information about the event.

Both sites show fire data drawn from the relevant fire agencies, using the same icons for Queensland and NSW as the Queensland Rural Fire Service's Current Bushfire Incidents website (you can find my overview description of this site here). However the permitted burn data from Queensland is not linked to this map.

The NSW site currently has satellite images from a few of the January fires, available as layers that can be individually selected, as well as links in the sidebar that zoom directly to particular satellite image overlays.

The overview site opens with a map of Australia, with options in the sidebar to zoom to particular states.  The sidebar provides a legend for the symbols used in each state.

The Australian overview site shows traffic levels for the capital CBD and nearby freeways for several states.

 From a bushfire information point of view, in its current state of development the site provides less information than the RFS Bushfire Incident Map website (no permitted burn locations), but with Google's resources behind it is one well worth monitoring for future developments.

Introducing fire-relevant websites - the Current Bushfire Incidents Map

This is the first of a series of posts introducing websites with some relevance to bushfires and/or emergency situations in Southeast Queensland.

The Current Bushfire Incidents Map

This map is on the Queensland Rural Fire Service website at: https://ruralfire.qld.gov.au/map.html

The map distinguishes between "bushfire incidents" which are shown by default on the map when it opens (above), and "current permitted burns" which are shown if the tick box on the lower left of the map is clicked (below).

Both maps can be zoomed, either by using the controls in the top left of the map, which tend to move in fairly large "jumps", or by "double clicking" on the area on the map where you want the centre of your view to be.  Combining the on-map controls with dragging the view area is better for getting to the general area of interest (there frequently isn't space to click between the symbols in the zoomed-out view).  Once in the general area double-clicking changes the degree of zooming in smaller increments.

The blue flame icons indicate that "a fire or other emergency has started in the area however there is no immediate threat" (see the Legend below the map for the meanings of other symbols used). But note that there is a warning at the bottom of the web page that "The symbols represent the general area of the fire, not its current location or spread."

Clicking on one of these symbols provides an overview of the information available.  The difference between the Reported date and the Latest Update date can suggest whether the fire is a large one (longer duration).  The fire location is given, though this has to be treated with some caution.  The location may be the nearest street to the fire, and where there are large properties involved, or a property has access via a long easement off a public road, the fire may be a considerable distance from the address given.

Clicking on the "More information" link opens the QFRS Incident Page for that particular fire in a separate window.

The key information on this page is the "Current Status" field.  "Going" means that firefighting resources are deployed to the fire.  You can find the explanations of other status types in the Legend below the map.

The overview information available for Permitted Burns (represented by document icons) show the Reported and Latest Update dates.

Because the QFRS Incident Pages associated with permitted burns always give the Current Status as "Going" I assume that permitted burns do not appear on the Incident Map until they are notified to FireComm immediately prior to lighting up.  But two things are important to note in relation to permitted burns. The first is that the "Going" status refers to the date of the Latest Update, not the date on which you access the Incident Map.  The second is that not all permitted burns are notified to FireComm, even though this is a condition of permit, so they will not appear on the map, and our experience is that not all permitted burns notified to FireComm appear on the Incident Map.  This seems to be particularly the case in our area with permitted burns in the southern part of the Helidon Hills.

It is also possible to subscribe to an RSS feed of with a list of current incidents from the QFRS which includes GeoRSS data and summary information where available.  There is also a KML Incident feed which opens in Google Earth and displays incident locations.  Information on these feeds is at: https://ruralfire.qld.gov.au/mapfeeds.html.  Both are updated every 30 minutes.

Gradually gaining recognition

It is heartening to see that more and more we are being advised of planned light-ups of permitted burns.  And not just by individual landowners - corporate and government landowners are beginning to give us advanced warning of light-ups.

This is an important development for a voluntary group like ours, where each smoke sighting can consume the time of lots of people.  For an "easy" fire, from the time a Coordinator receives the first notification with a bearing on the smoke to the point of filing it away as one of the following: a permitted controlled burn; a known wildfire; an unreported wildfire; or outside our area of interest, at least three Smokespotters will have been involved for varying periods, and it will have taken around 40 minutes of the Coordinator's time.

A fire that is more difficult to locate (perhaps due to strong winds, smoke haze, or other atmospheric conditions) may have involved both Coordinators for more than two hours, maybe seven or eight Smokespotters, and one or two government agencies.

Obviously, where we have advice of the lighting up of a planned burn, the time and number of people involved is likely to be much less.  The more we can achieve this situation, the longer we are likely to keep Coordinators and Smokespotters motivated to be involved in the group.  And, equally important, the more accurate we can be in our identification of the source of smoke, which translates into fewer "false alarms" to FireComm and Rural Fire Brigades.  Our credibility is the key to obtaining a quick response from the relevant agencies to our identification of unplanned fires.

So, please, encourage your friends, neighbours and employers to give one of the Smokespotter Coordinators a call when they are about to light up a permitted burn.  It's not that difficult to give us a call at the same time as they call FireComm to report they are lighting up (which is a condition of the permit).