Keeping Fuel Information Up-to-Date for the Australian Fire Danger Rating System

Speaker: Davie Dean
Affiliation: NSW Rural Fire Service

Abstract

The Australian Fire Danger Rating System (AFDRS) uses a combination of predicted weather and current vegetation (or fuel) information to determine Fire Danger Ratings across the whole country for the next week. One important aspect is the type of fuel present across the country and the state of that fuel. This talk will give an overview of the Australian Fire Danger Rating System and then walk you through a typical analytical fuel update process done in collaboration between the National AFDRS team, the state and territory teams and the Bureau of Meteorology.

Biography:

Dr. David/Davie Dean (he/him or she/her) has a long history of applying research algorithms to complex, real-world systems, with a core interest in geospatial data analysis. As a Senior Project Officer, Research Implementation for the national AFDRS Team, Davie is responsible for evaluating and operationalizing fire modelling research into the AFDRS. Prior to their current role they led the Learning Analytics Team at TAFE NSW, applied machine learning research for medical start-ups and commercialised machine learning and signal processing research at the Queensland University of Technology.