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Client: Brian Hine (03) 8684 7920, Office of the Emergency Services Commissioner, Victoria

The wildfire project was undertaken for the Office of the Emergency Services Commissioner (OESC) as one of the responses to recommendations arising from the Inquiry into the 2002-2003 Victorian Bushfires.  The project required the consequences of wildfire on assets to be described, classified, quantified and mapped in a uniform way across Victoria to meet the needs of a range of stakeholders responsible for wildfire management planning, including the Department of Sustainability and Environment, Country Fire Authority and Local Government staff.

The information products developed by the project are to be used as planning tools and will provide consistent information for the prevention and preparedness components of emergency management.  The products also provide useful strategic information for response and recovery phases of emergency management and are sufficiently flexible to be applicable for hazards other than wildfire

The objectives of the Wildfire Project were to develop a:

• Methodology to identify, classify, quantify assets and evaluate the consequences of wildfire on those assets in the natural environment (including life, property and the environment) throughout Victoria; and
• Statewide wildfire consequence of loss map(s) and dataset(s) consolidated from existing datasets, presented in a uniform and accessible format that supports integrated wildfire planning and decision making across DSE, CFA and Local Government.

It is envisaged that a 12 month trial will be implemented in 2007, where stakeholders will be asked to share their experience in using the spatial datasets and methodology developed by the project.

Demonstrated Capabilities

• Ability to consult with a broad range of users on a complex spatial information development project as input to the development of a suitable methodology and resultant spatial products.
• Ability to develop methodologies that are strategically focused with significant degrees of transparency and design flexibility.
• Detailed methodology documentation.
• Significant spatial data collation from State and Federal agencies.
• Data manipulation and value-adding to core datasets.
• Development of a cost effective, transparent, modular and repeatable project methodology suitable for ongoing refinement.
• Consultation and collaboration with key Emergency Management personnel within CFA, DSE and local government to create user focused spatial data products..

Resources

Milos Pelikan was the primary designer and developer of the methodology and resultant spatial products.

Stephen Farrell was responsible for project management and report preparation.

Phill King, Luong Tran and Amanda Tyrer were responsible for data collation and development.

Beca Planning undertook stakeholder consultation, and RMIT and Ecology Australia provided specialist input on asset valuation, categorisation and consequence of loss ratings

Technologies Applied

• ArcInfo GRID
• ArcGIS 9
• MS Access