About
Amicus is a fire behaviour knowledge base system. It is designed to enable fire behaviour analysts or anyone with a keen interest in determining the likely behaviour of a bushfire to quickly and easily make a prediction of that behaviour based on given fuel, weather and topographic conditions. It does not simulate the progress of a fire but provides tabulated estimates of the likely rate of forward spread of the head of a bushfire burning under those conditions.
It includes all recommended fire spread models for four primary vegetation types (grasslands, shrublands, forests and plantations) covering 15 fuel types into an easy -to -use interface that combines information (either estimates, forecasts or observations) on prevailing or forecast weather, fuel condition and topography to predict likely rate of forward spread, flame height and fireline intensity. Models for fire behaviour for the following fuel types are included:
| Grasslands | Shrublands | Forests | Plantations |
| Open continuous | Temperate shrubland | Dry eucalypt (prescribed burning conditions) | Pine (radiata) |
| Woodland | Semi-arid heath | Tall wet eucalypt (prescribed burning conditions) | Short rotation eucalypt |
| Open grassy forests | Semi-arid Mallee-heath | Dry eucalypt (wildfire conditions) | Maritime pine |
| Spinifex | Tall wet eucalypt (wildfire conditions) | ||
| Buttongrass |
Output is in the form of tables of predictions for given conditions or as graphs of temporal change in fire behaviour following given time series of weather conditions. The effects of changes in burning conditions on fire behaviour can be quickly and easily assessed as can the sensitivity of such changes in the graphic display of model results.
Amicus was developed by CSIRO utilising CSIRO’s software development environment Workspace combined with CSIRO’s long history of bushfire research. Amicus summarises our latest knowledge of bushfire behaviour and bushfire rate of spread prediction.