16 April 2018

This blog provides a rapid response to the major bushfires in Sydney’s south-west on the weekend (14-15 April 2018).

Unseasonably warm weather (more akin to summer than autumn) caused major bushfires in Sydney’s south-west on Saturday 14 April 2018, posing a serious threat to many properties in nearby suburbs.

  • NSW RFS’ major fire updates (link)

  • BOM’s special climate statement 65: Persistent summer-like heat sets many April records (issued 13 April 2018, link)

As main information products were already shared on social media, now we only add links below.

Level 1: Earth Observation & Imagery Analysis

The latest Sentinel-2 satellite imagery during the event (15 April 2018) is available, showing the fast propagation of  intense fires driven by strong westerly winds.

Level 2: Integrated Property Location Profile Report

We routinely produce property location profile reports, which contain comprehensive information on climate-warming trends, exposure estimates and ABS’s Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA, based on 2016 Census and released in late March 2018). Sample reports (each 31-page PDF and based on Version 4.3) for three suburb addresses are available:

  • Brushwood Dr, Alfords Point NSW 2234

  • St George Cres, Sandy Point NSW 2172

  • Rosewall Dr, Menai NSW 2234

Level 3: Bushfire-prone Areas (animation)

We have used Sentinel-2 imagery (5 April 2018, immediately before the fire) and a semi-automated method to classify bushland with high accuracy. Then, we use delineated bushland to map out bushfire-prone areas.

Note: With the cloud-based geospatial big data and analytics platform developed, we are able to efficiently produce similar information products for future major / extreme events in Australia. We constantly enhance the cloud-based platform by including new content, analytics and delivery means.