Anatomy of a catastrophic wildfire: The Black Saturday Kilmore East fire in Victoria, Australia

Cruz, Miguel G.; Sullivan, Andrew L.; Gould, James S.; Sims, Neil; Bannister, A.J.; Hollis, Jennifer; Hurley, Richard

doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2012.02.035

Cited by 358 publications

(329 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Indeed, the rate of growth of the Forrestania fire may represent one of the largest fire spread events documented for a single fire on one day. The scale of area burnt and rates of fire development are comparable with those documented for Black Saturday 7 February 2009 in southeastern Australia which burned over 450,000 ha and resulted in 173 human fatalities (Cruz et al 2012). The Kilmore East fire was the most significant of these fires, burning 100,000 ha in less than 12 hours and travelling a distance of around 55 km under northerly winds before being forced northwards by the passage of a cold front.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 68%

Reconstructing the spread of landscape-scale fires in semi-arid southwestern Australia

McCaw¹,

Reynen²,

Peace³

et al. 2014

Advances in Forest Fire Research

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A navegação consulta e descarregamento dos títulos inseridos nas Bibliotecas Digitais UC Digitalis, UC Pombalina e UC Impactum, pressupõem a aceitação plena e sem reservas dos Termos e Condições de Uso destas Bibliotecas Digitais, disponíveis em https://digitalis.uc.pt/pt-pt/termos.Conforme exposto nos referidos Termos e Condições de Uso, o descarregamento de títulos de acesso restrito requer uma licença válida de autorização devendo o utilizador aceder ao(s) documento(s) a partir de um endereço de IP da instituição detentora da supramencionada licença.Ao utilizador é apenas permitido o descarregamento para uso pessoal, pelo que o emprego do(s) título(s) descarregado(s) para outro fim, designadamente comercial, carece de autorização do respetivo autor ou editor da obra. Na medida em que todas as obras da UC Digitalis se encontram protegidas pelo Código do Direito de Autor e Direitos Conexos e demais legislação aplicável, toda a cópia, parcial ou total, deste documento, nos casos em que é legalmente admitida, deverá conter ou fazer-se acompanhar por este aviso.Reconstructing the spread of landscape-scale fires in semi-arid southwestern Australia Autor(es):McCaw, Lachlan; Reynen, Vicky; Zdunic, Katherine; Peace, Mika AbstractLandscape-scale fires are a regular feature of semi-arid south-western Australia where the dominant vegetation types are shrubland and eucalypt woodland. Fuel discontinuity limits the spread of fire in some eucalypt woodlands under moderate weather conditions, but fires can spread extensively in woodland under severe fire weather conditions. This paper reconstructs the spread of five large fires ignited by lightning that each burnt more than 90 000 ha. Fires remained active for up to 70 days after ignition until they encountered areas of sparse fuel associated with salt lakes and previous burn scars, or were extinguished by rain. Fire perimeters were mapped using daily NOAA AVHRR and MODIS satellite imagery and used to determine periodic growth in fire area. Weather conditions associated with each fire were examined using observations from a limited number of sites. Fire growth was episodic and strongly associated with periods of high temperature, extreme dryness and strong winds. An event of extraordinary fire growth was identified during the 1994 Forrestania fire which increased in area by more than 350 000 ha during a 24 hour period. The influence of weather on fire spread is being examined using re-analysis data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) Interim Re-analysis project ERA-1 which provides spatial and temporal data coverage not otherwise available due to the sparse observation network. South-western Australia provides a unique opportunity to examine factors influencing the duration, scale and growth characteristics of fires burning in semi-arid landscapes unimpeded by fire suppression. High intensity fires can cause widespread mortality of mature woodland trees with recovery to a mature structure taking several centuries, and the role of fire in dev...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 68%

Reconstructing the spread of landscape-scale fires in semi-arid southwestern Australia

McCaw¹,

Reynen²,

Peace³

et al. 2014

Advances in Forest Fire Research

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“…cross section or planar view) of the plume at 6 min intervals during the day. Rain radar has been used in several studies to measure the vertical and horizontal spread of wildfire smoke (Jones and Christopher, 2010;Cruz et al, 2012;Fromm et al, 2012). However, radar detects objects at least 100 µm in diameter, so it measures larger particles in the smoke than the PM 2.5 fractions recorded by the other instruments.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Local and regional smoke impacts from prescribed fires

Price

Horsey

Jiang³

2016

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Smoke from wildfires poses a significant threat to affected communities. Prescribed burning is conducted to reduce the extent and potential damage of wildfires, but produces its own smoke threat. Planners of prescribed fires model the likely dispersion of smoke to help manage the impacts on local communities. Significant uncertainty remains about the actual smoke impact from prescribed fires, especially near the fire, and the accuracy of smoke dispersal models.To address this uncertainty, a detailed study of smoke dispersal was conducted for one small (52 ha) and one large (700 ha) prescribed fire near Appin in New South Wales, Australia, through the use of stationary and handheld pollution monitors, visual observations and rain radar data, and by comparing observations to predictions from an atmospheric dispersion model. The 52 ha fire produced a smoke plume about 800 m high and 9 km long. Particle concentrations (PM 2.5 ) reached very high peak values (> 400 µg m −3 ) and high 24 h average values (> 100 µg m −3 ) at several locations next to or within ∼ 500 m downwind from the fire, but low levels elsewhere. The 700 ha fire produced a much larger plume, peaking at ∼ 2000 m altitude and affecting downwind areas up to 14 km away. Both peak and 24 h average PM 2.5 values near the fire were lower than for the 52 ha fire, but this may be because the monitoring locations were further away from the fire. Some lofted smoke spread north against the ground-level wind direction. Smoke from this fire collapsed to the ground during the night at different times in different locations. Although it is hard to attribute particle concentrations definitively to smoke, it seems that the collapsed plume affected a huge area including the towns of Wollongong, Bargo, Oakdale, Camden and Campbelltown (∼ 1200 km 2 ). PM 2.5 concentrations up to 169 µg m −3 were recorded on the morning following the fire. The atmospheric dispersion model accurately predicted the general behaviour of both plumes in the early phases of the fires, but was poor at predicting fine-scale variation in particulate concentrations (e.g. places 500 m from the fire). The correlation between predicted and observed varied between 0 and 0.87 depending on location. The model also completely failed to predict the night-time collapse of the plume from the 700 ha fire.This study provides a preliminary insight into the potential for large impacts from prescribed fire smoke to NSW communities and the need for increased accuracy in smoke dispersion modelling. More research is needed to better understand when and why such impacts might occur and provide better predictions of pollution risk.

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“…In the same region, but under more severe fire weather (air temperature 41°C; relative humidity 12 %; wind speed 35 km hr −1 ), 20-and 2-year-old fuels contrasted in the level of exhibited fire behaviour, respectively crown fire and low-intensity surface fire [3]. Several wildfires in Victoria burned nearly 0.5 million ha and killed 173 people on the 7th of February 2009 (termed 'Black Saturday'), of which the Kilmore East Fire was the most significant in many respects and has been studied in considerable detail [34]. Exceptionally, dry fuels and strong winds combined to produce fire behaviour in the far extreme of the spectrum, with rate of fire spread (impelled by shortrange spotting) and fireline intensity peaking at 9.2 km h , respectively, and spot fires ignited as far as 33 km from the head of the fire.…”

Section: Australiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Empirical Support for the Use of Prescribed Burning as a Fuel Treatment

Fernandes

2015

Curr Forestry Rep

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Prescribed burning as a fuel treatment seeks to moderate wildfire impacts and decreases the areal extent of wildfires by increasing the effectiveness of fire suppression. Assessment of prescribed burning effectiveness is frequently anecdotal or based on simulation. This paper examines recent observational evidence of prescribed fire effectiveness. The spread rate and intensity of experimental fires in distinct fuel types have been shown to increase with time since treatment (fuel age) following fuel structure recovery. Prescribed fire constrains the size and especially the severity of individual fires, even under extremely severe weather conditions. At larger spatial and temporal scales of analysis, the effect of fuel age on unplanned fire severity is also evident, whether it comes from wildfires entering treated areas or from wildfires in fuel-reduced areas resulting from earlier wildfire occurrences. The persistence of these effects is variable, depending on vegetation type and productivity. The long-term reduction in wildfire area brought about by prescribed fire can be difficult to ascertain. Substantial effort (annual treatment rates >5 % of the landscape) has been shown to effectively control the extent of wildfires in forests, with 3-4 units of prescribed burning needed to reduce wildfire by one unit. Future studies should consider the decrease in area burned by high-severity fire as a more meaningful and objective measure of prescribed fire effectiveness than the decrease in wildfire area and should strive to document fire behaviour in treated versus untreated areas during wildfires.

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Anatomy of a catastrophic wildfire: The Black Saturday Kilmore East fire in Victoria, Australia

Cited by 358 publications

References 22 publications

Reconstructing the spread of landscape-scale fires in semi-arid southwestern Australia

Reconstructing the spread of landscape-scale fires in semi-arid southwestern Australia

Local and regional smoke impacts from prescribed fires

Empirical Support for the Use of Prescribed Burning as a Fuel Treatment

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