27 March 2018
It is quite unusual to have extreme fire weather in autumn in Australia, which has caused widespread bushfires (e.g. fires in SW Victoria and fires in the Alpine National Park) and devastating property damage.
We have developed and shared three information products in response to the disaster in Tathra, a picturesque town at the Sapphire Coast (Southern NSW, Australia). Fast-moving fires on Sunday 18 March 2018 destroyed 65 houses and 35 caravans / cabins, and damaged another 48 buildings (source: NSW RFS).
As main information products have been shared on social media (especially on Twitter) already, we only add links below.
(Using 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.)
Level 1: Earth Observation & Imagery Analysis
We have used Sentinel-2 satellite imagery (11 March 2018, immediately before the fire) to classify bushland. Sentinel-2 imagery (26 March 2018, soon after the fire) was also processed to visualise the full extent of burnt area. The before/after imagery is shown below.
Burn scars of the 18/03/2018 bushfires in Tathra (NSW, Australia), seen by today’s Sentinel-2 imagery (26/03/2018, 11:02am local time). Before and after fire imagery comparisons are provided.#bushfire #Sentinel2 @CopernicusEMS @CopernicusEU @NSWRFS @abcnews pic.twitter.com/5GaR69UFIn
— BigData Earth (@BigDataEarth) March 26, 2018
Level 2: Integrated Exposure Location Profile Report
This comprehensive location profile report (Version 4.2, 03/2018) features an exposure estimation component we have recently finished. The number of addresses in the vicinity of bushland was estimated. (If the exposure data is in another form, e.g. building stocks, infrastructure assets or sum insured, we are able to produce reports similarly.)
1 – Integrated exposure location profile report (~30 pages, PDF)
Containing metrics on the environment and exposure estimation – terrain, bushland, exposure, population, housing, etc. Full report download: https://t.co/MJkvSYL1Bl#Tathra #bushfire @NSWRFS @ABCemergency @abcnews pic.twitter.com/DzeMcCQnJx— BigData Earth (@BigDataEarth) March 19, 2018
Level 3: Bushfire-prone Areas (animation)
In this case, the freshly classified bushland was used to identify bushfire-prone areas. In 2017, we finished a national study for this type of application (link).
2 – Bushfire prone areas animation. Bushland is classified from the 11 March 2018 Sentinel-2 satellite imagery (soon before the fire).
Animation download: https://t.co/DLbCBjsMs7#Tathra #bushfire @NSWRFS @ABCemergency @abcnews pic.twitter.com/3zN7qj3EH2— BigData Earth (@BigDataEarth) March 19, 2018