Australian firefighters will be able to more accurately predict whims of deadly bushfires thanks to new modelling it is hoped will save lives and properties.
Australia's national science agency CSIRO and the NSW Rural Fire Service have developed the country's most advanced model for predicting the speed and behaviour of eucalypt forest fires.
Eucalypt forests make up more than 70 per cent of Australia's forests, and have featured in some of its fiercest fires.
The model is a mathematical description of how a fire responds to environmental conditions, and will be rolled out nationally this summer.
"This model was built using analysis of the most extensive set of data gathered from observations of large, high-intensity experimental fires and wildfires, collated from around the country over the past 40 years," CSIRO bushfire behaviour researcher and leader of the project Miguel Cruz said.
Firefighters input forecast weather and wind information from the Bureau of Meteorology, data on the fuel load within the forest from vegetation databases, and patterns of existing behaviour of a fire from fireground reports.
CSIRO bushfire behaviour researcher Andrew Sullivan said the new model would give firefighters an extra advantage in controlling complex and difficult blazes.
"Firefighters often have to battle steep terrain and challenging conditions just to reach the fire," Dr Sullivan said.
"Critically, this model can accurately predict the speed that a fire front will advance across a landscape, which is essential to enable authorities to efficiently identify threats, issue bushfire warning messages, signal evacuations, and plan fire suppression actions."
