Award for national bushfire extents data
An animation showing 3 hourly updates for a bushfire impacting Mariginiup, Western Australia in November 2023.
An animation showing 3 hourly updates for a bushfire impacting Mariginiup, Western Australia in November 2023.
The National Bushfire Intelligence Capability (NBIC) congratulates their collaborators, Geoscience Australia and the Emergency Management Spatial Information Network Australia, on taking out the Data Sharing and Partnerships award at the Australian Public Service Data Awards announced on November 13, 2024, for their work on the groundbreaking new national bushfire extents data service.
How is the National Bushfire Intelligence Capability involved?
We know that bushfires don’t stop at borders and in the wake of the 2019-2020 Black Summer there was an obvious need for national data that is shared with decision makers with greater speed, accuracy and reliability.
This mandate is the driver behind the National Bushfire Intelligence Capability. Funded by the Australian Climate Service and supported by the National Emergency Management Agency, our aim is to improve bushfire data and intelligence to equip all levels of government and empower all sectors of the community to better prepare, respond and recover from bushfires.
A critical component of this work is the national bushfire extents mapping project which provides readily accessible information about where, when, and how frequently fire has occurred across the Australian landscape.
The challenge of aggregating large volumes of data from the various fire management agencies across Australia in near real-time is no small undertaking given the variety of technologies and data formats in use.
Bringing all this together is testament to the exceptional level of goodwill and genuine desire of individuals across all agencies. The project is based on the constructive and collaborative use of spatial and data technologies to harmonise these into a consistent national data standard, to which all fire agencies nationally are now contributing.
The work celebrates the success of the Emergency Management Spatial Information Network Australia (EMSINA) in bringing together people from a broad range of agencies to work towards this new nationally consistent information product.
Past work
The national bushfire extents data effort commenced in 2020 through the Bushfire Data Challenges Program for the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS)-funded Australian Research Data Commons.
This important groundbreaking project has continued to develop and improve through the National Bushfire Intelligence Capability, funded by the Australian Climate Service, with key contributors being Geoscience Australia, EMSINA and CSIRO.
Future work
The team, including contributions from EMSINA member agencies, Geoscience Australia and CSIRO, is continuing to work together to improve the existing data services, ensuring that they are stable in the face of a growing user base, increasingly accurate and available with minimal delay.
It is a shining example of the continued value of sharing data across boundaries and borders to produce outstanding nationally consistent products for use by all decision makers responsible for ensuring greater resilience of Australian Communities in the face of the growing threat of bushfire in Australia.
R
r
E