Automating bushfire risk assessment

As part of the Australian government’s National Strategy for Disaster Resilience program, emergency services agencies nationwide have prioritised establishing preparedness and prevention strategies to create greater community and organisational resilience.

A best-practice example of this is the ACT Emergency Services Authority (ESA), which has used Geographic Information System (GIS) technology to develop a revolutionary Bushfire Attack Level (BAL) tool.

In developing this tool, ESA sought to provide Canberra residents and emergency responders alike with an accurate understanding of the bushfire risk facing properties – before a fire strikes.

The tool introduces new rigor, accuracy and consistency to how risk assessments are managed, and provides unparalleled insight to not only authorities – but individual members of the public.

It has also generated significant efficiency gains for ESA by transforming a previously manually laborious task to a rapid automated process that assesses 16,000 properties in just one hour.

The tool is now also underpinning property construction regulation and building codes – to ensure that every new home built has the lowest possible risk in terms of exposure to bushfire, to prevent a situation like the devastating 2003 Canberra fires from ever occurring again.

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