Mapping areas burnt by fire (fire scars) using satellite
technology has been undertaken across northern Australia for
several years. It provides a very useful record of fire patterns
across the landscape, as well as being used in planning for and
managing fire.
Burnt areas have been mapped over a two to three week time
interval and assigned to the month in which most of the fire
occurred. (The current mapping update interval for 2006 is one to
two weeks.)
Mapping the extent of burnt areas over time provides
information that can be presented in a number of ways. The linked
PDF documents below illustrate some of the ways that the
information collected over the last nine years is used.
You can view fire mapping information on the North Australia
Fire Information (NAFI) website, link below. This type of
information, which you can download from the website, provides a
quick and easy reference for revisiting fire from previous years as
well as showing the regional impacts of fire.
The PDFs will open in another window when you click on the link.
They are best viewed in the "Fit Page" view on the latest version
of Adobe Reader. Use the "Page Down" button on the keyboard or
"Next Page" arrow on the bottom Adobe Reader toolbar to scroll
through the fire mapping for each year. You can also save these
PDFs directly to your computer by right-clicking on the link and
choosing "Save Link As". Examples available here are:
- area burnt each year
- area burnt each month
- area burnt by early and late season fires
- fire frequency
- late fire frequency
- year when last burnt
Documents
NT Gulf fire frequency 1997 to 2005
By overlaying successive years of fire mapping as transparent layers, the frequency (number of times an area has been burnt) is dispalyed - the redder the colour, the more frequent the fires. [pdf 1.2 Mb]
NT Gulf fire year last burnt 1997 to 2005
By overlaying the burnt areas sequentially, the year in which areas were last burnt is displayed. This could also be interpreted as the number of years since the last fire. [pdf 1.4 Mb]
NT Gulf fires 1997 to 2005
This shows the extent of the area burnt each year, which varies considerably from year to year. [pdf 1.3 Mb]
NT Gulf fires by month 1997 to 2005
Burnt areas can be displayed by the month in which they were mapped to show the progress of fires throughout each year. [pdf 1.3 Mb]
NT Gulf fires early and late 1997 to 2005
This shows the extent of early and late season fires from year to year. In most years there is a higher proportion of late season wildfires compared to earlier 'cooler' fires. Early fires are those that burn up until July, although this does depend on seasonal factors. [pdf 1.1 Mb]
NT Gulf late fire frequency 1997 to 2005
By overlaying successive years of only late season fires as transparent layers, the frequency of wildfires is displayed. [pdf 1.2 Mb]
Links
North Australia Fire Information
www.firenorth.org.au
NAFI: Up-to-date maps and data on fires across northern Australia. Includes hotspots and fire-scars.
