HIGHFIRE RISK PROJECT

FIRE CHANNELLING EVENTS

Date	Fire	Location	Longitude (d.dd°)	Latitude (d.dd°)	Elevation (m)	Type	Code
8 Jan 2003	McIntyres Hut fire	Brindabella NP, NSW	148.75	-35.27	800	L	030108A

This fire was one of many started by dry lightning within a dust storm on the afternoon of the 8th January, 2003.
Unlike many other ignitions in the area, this one had a significant uphill run.
It is now clear that this uphill run turned into a fire channelling event.

After ignition, this fire crossed a fire trail and entered the bottom of a canyon.
In this multispectral linescan taken on the 18th January 2003, the area burnt in and around that canyon shows a quite different spectral signature to surrounding areas. This indicates the severity of the fire channelling event.
Photos of the smoke plume are of use in analysing the situation.
The photo above shows that the plume was being pushed to the ENE, and that under these circumstances the spurline on the SW edge of the canyon was able to generate a lee-slope fire channelling event that dominated the fire behaviour.

This material is derived from multispectral linescans flown by Air Target Services Pty Ltd for the NSW Rural Fire Service. The base map is from ACTESA's Operational Atlas project.