Fire Trails

Land and emergency management agencies in Australia and overseas recognise the importance of an access network to support bushfire management activities. Ground and aerial access provides a platform for reduction and readiness activities, and provides opportunities to contain fires often before they escalate into major fires that would otherwise incur significant costs of suppression and potentially significant losses to community, cultural and environmental values.

Fire access must provide for safe and effective fire mitigation:

Reducing the Risks of Unplanned Fires

• Patrol – ground access provides for fire patrols to assist with deterrence of arson
• Detection – ground and aerial access provides for detection from designated lookouts/fire towers and from other vantage points
• Prescribed burning – ground access provides containment lines for prescribed burning operations, influencing operational factors and the ecological effects of burn unit size. Containment lines are essential where there are limited opportunities to use natural features or fuel moisture differentials (experience indicates that the maximum size of prescribed burns is in the range of 2000 - 4000 hectares).

Readiness

• Standup – ground access provides opportunities for enhanced readiness through deploying suppression forces in strategic locations.

Response

• Initial attack – ground and aerial access facilitates the initial attack of unplanned fires, including ground and aerial suppression, particularly to areas with high ignition probability. Improved access allows faster first attack by ground crews with or without aerial support, providing for potentially shorter timeframes for suppression. Quicker suppression generally results in smaller fire size and greater chance of first attack success, minimising the risk to other values. Lightning ignitions in south east Australia are generally followed by a predictable weather pattern (hot and unstable – lightning – cool change – increasing fire danger). The general ‘lull’ in conditions following summer electrical storms normally provides an opportunity for suppression providing appropriate access is available, before the normal rapidly escalating fire danger makes suppression more difficult.
• Ongoing suppression – ground access strongly influences unplanned fire size by providing containment opportunities. The consequences of large unplanned fires due to wide spaced containment lines must be considered, with an increased probability of containment failure with increasing fire size and perimeter.

Recovery

• Containment line recovery – well planned ground access has the potential to reduce environmental and economic impacts and reduce the recovery requirements of ill-considered and potentially higher impact track construction during unplanned fires.