According to an ABC investigation, Australia’s new $11 million fire warning system is inflating hazards, frightening communities, and damaging public faith.
Earlier this month, the system falsely alerted Queensland’s Fire and Emergency Services (QFES) that a sizable portion of southern Queensland was experiencing catastrophic circumstances.
In an effort to lower the rating that had been assigned throughout the Darling Downs and Granite Belt, QFES officials hurried to make adjustments to the system at midnight the night before the day of the so-called “catastrophic” fire category.
Before being downgraded, the false designation of “catastrophic,” which urges evacuating residents in a fire region and forewarns of a high likelihood of loss of life and property, persisted for at least 16 hours.
The Australian Fire Danger Rating System (AFDRS), which was introduced in September of last year, was intended to utilise the most recent research, including comprehensive vegetation data maps and fire prediction models, to more correctly anticipate bushfire behavior.
However, the ABC has acknowledged that the algorithm has been producing false ratings since it needs specific information about the vegetation, which is frequently lacking.
Staff members of the fire service had only two vegetation options to pick from under the old system.
However, the AFDRS mandates that officers select from eight distinct fuel types while taking moisture content into account.
teething problems
When a West Australian government fire officer advised a Perth council on “teething” problems with the way different types of vegetation were graded in the system, problems were raised earlier this year interstate.
The briefing was mentioned in the June minutes of the Mundaring Shire Council, which also said that “as a result, public confidence in the system has waned.”
The system’s creation and deployment were overseen by the National Council for Fire and Emergency Services in Australia and New Zealand (AFAC), which acknowledged this week that “some improvements to inputs needed” were necessary.
The approach, according to AFAC, “places us in a much better position than retaining the widely criticized system of the past,” and it is a fundamentally safer choice that is still being adjusted.
An ex-fire behavior expert for the Queensland government has criticized the system’s functionality, calling for the reinstatement of the prior ratings system while the AFDRS is improved.
Fire behavior specialist Andrew Sturgess, who founded and oversaw Queensland’s Fire Service’s predictive services branch until late 2019, claims that “We don’t have the quality of inputs that we need to get really confident fire danger ratings out of the new system.”
“The new system needs a ton of new data regarding things like the height of the fuel and the load on the ground,” the speaker said.
“The system is not fit for purpose” if a decision must be made on the circumstances at midnight the day before.
According to Mr. Sturgess, the system has particular difficulty estimating the fire hazard in places with spinifex and pine plantations.
In order to do so, “[it] requires] a high level of detail about the pine plantations, such as the age of the trees, but this data was not available,” he stated.
“A blatant overprediction”
Presenting an inaccurate forecast of a disastrous fire season, according to Mr. Sturgess, who is currently employed as an independent fire mitigation and behavior consultant, might erode public faith.
He called the warning of a catastrophic fire hazard for southern Queensland made at the beginning of September “a gross overprediction.”
We need people to grasp what that implies, therefore it’s a major challenge.
He also brought up the recent judgment in New South Wales, where the closure of 20 schools was the result of a catastrophic fire hazard rating for a sizable portion of the state’s far south coast.
Despite the poor conditions, according to Mr. Sturgess, they would not have received the highest classification under the previous method.
The assertion has been refuted by NSW Rural Fire Service, whose representative stated that the inputs for the far South Coast were validated with the local district last week ahead of the predicted weather.
The impacted councils were troubled by the disastrous classification in southern Queensland on September 4.
Receiving calls as it rained
Lawrence Springborg, the mayor of the Goondiwindi Regional Council, stated a “higher level of explanation” was required regarding how the system operated.
He claimed that as rain pounded on his roof, he had been answering calls from Australian media outlets about the disastrous rating.
According to Cr Springborg, “When we got this catastrophic forest fire risk, that raised a lot of concerns for a whole range of people.”
We will pursue this with the authorities so we can have a better understanding and explanation. We will also encourage them to ensure that the community is aware of this.
If not, “the neighborhood might not take it seriously.”
Paul McVeigh, mayor of the Western Downs Regional Council, remarked that extreme circumstances can demand “quite a bit of effort.” People must be forced to leave their homes and must have a place to go, such as evacuation centers, he said.
When asked what steps were being taken to address the issue, QFES stated that it was revising the baseline of the system and upgrading vegetation maps.
According to a spokesperson, “QFES is also conducting a workshop with industry experts in the upcoming weeks to review the AFDRS baseline and overall vegetation classification inputs, to ensure the data entering the system is of the highest standard and is providing accurate fire danger forecasting throughout Queensland.
The size of Queensland has the potential to create data difficulties, and QFES was aware of this as a partner in the creation of the AFDRS.
“Over forecasting problem solved,”
The representative claimed that after the September 4 incident was reviewed, the problem that gave rise to the “over-forecasting” was fixed.
The “scale of change” involved in switching to the new system, according to an AFAC representative, “cannot be underestimated.”
According to the spokesman, “community confidence in the system is vital, and ongoing system refinements will ensure more accurate and timely fire risk information is provided to the public.”
According to the spokesman, the AFDRS system cost $11.6 million, with additional funds made available to promote local adoption, including a broad national education effort.
In 2020, the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements made the revamping of the outdated fire rating system a recommendation.
The outdated system used two types of vegetation—forest and grass—to forecast fire behavior—six different fire rating categories in all.
The new AFDRS uses four different fire rating scales—moderate, high, extreme, and catastrophic—and forecasts fire behavior by taking into account at least eight different vegetation types, from grassy woodland and pine to spinifex and button grass.
The four fire ratings are accompanied by a fire behavior index, which has a scale from one to one hundred.
According to a federal government timeline for 2022, the system’s whole implementation would cost $36 million.