The Cape York Fire Management Project

Cape York Fire program

The Cape York Fire program has been in operation for over ten years and is successfully run from our Cairns office. Originally conceived to plot and map fire activity in the Cape, the program soon took on allied tasks that enhanced it's abilities to manage fire in the region.

Aaron Crosbie now leads the program team and most people will know Aaron from his GIS training work and more recently from his time working in the Kowanyama Aboriginal Land and Natural Resource Management Office. A  significant achievement of this program is the support given to land managers through freely available, near real-time and historical fire information via the North Australian Fire Information website. CYSF has a ten-year CYP fire history database, which is used throughout Queensland to establish the relationship between fire management and biodiversity along with other land management outcomes. Other achievements associated with the program are:

CYSF are providing satellite fire tracking and mapping services, promoting best practice fire management in Cape York. The program has improved coordination and cooperation between stakeholders across all land tenures, In consequence, it has developed a sound base for sustainable fire management strategies and practices. The fire management program will continue delivering training to landowners on Cape York in use of the technology and development of holistic fire management .

Firescar Mapping

Cape York Sustainable Futures have been involved in Remote Sensing and GIS for over a decade, and pioneered the use of satellite data for fire control and land management in Queensland.

CYSF combined these two disciplines to form a highly capable management tool for remote area and reserves, focusing on sustainable environmental management. GIS and Remote Sensing are core tools for regional management, where the cost of providing on-ground monitoring is prohibitive or access is limited.

Several years ago, our officers developed a comprehensive training course including manuals, which gave added capacity to map and record fire activ

ity to the landholders. Landholders and indigenous land managers can now use these skills to plan for a more secure future.

The NAFI website has become an essential monitoring tool for land managers. It is accessed by most members of the Cape community in times of fire. CYSF has been supplying satellite firescar information to stakeholders through the NAFI site since NAFI commenced in about 2003. CYSF's database includes fire data from well before NAFI's inception. In addition, CYSF officers provide real time backup by phone and email during the fire season delivering a local service to local people.

Remote Sensing & GIS Capacity

Currently Cape York Sustainable Futures:

• Monitors fire through Satellite imagery for the early warning North Australian Fire Information site (NAFI)
• Conducts fire history studies facilitated by imagery sourced from the GLOVIS Landsat reference set for vegetation management, property mana gement, carbon studies and grazing community regional fire plans
• Provides custom mapping services for customer specified management purposes
• Produces flight path maps and flight coordinates for aerial surveys and the QFRS aerial incendiary program
• Provides special needs publications fo r training in spatial and geospatial applications, which include high end applications such as ArcGIS and ERDAS Imagine. These training programs have been adopted by the Qld NRM bodies and are currently delivered state-wide via the RGC.
• Provides GPS and Google Earth application training to Rangers and field officers at a level commensurate with the capacity of the officers. The training is tailored for special needs where required.

Landholders and indigenous land managers can now use these skills to plan for a more secure future.

Aerial Incendiary

By forming an alliance with landholders and the Rural Fire Service, CYSF has organized a series of strategic incendiary burn programs. These programs arranged controlled fires that were timed to coincide with seasonal conditions so that the resulting safe cool burns promoted natural firebreaks before the onset of the fire season. The timing is imperative whereby fire is utilised to interact with the determining weather variables and moisture content of the vegetation or grass drying cycles. The objective being fire lit in the middle of the day will self-extinguish in the cool of night or upon a moist gully at that time of year.
 Essentially Cape York receives a monsoonal deluge every wet season resulting in high maintenance costs to roads and fire break trails over hundreds of kilometres. Aerial burning of fire breaks is also environmentally effective reducing any excess erosion as compared to manmade earth disturbed breaks.
The result of early dry season fires used frequently in the same location can change the structure of the vegetation type causing woody thickening or altering the biodiversity, therefore careful planning by property owners and managers alters and rotates the target areas for variable fire regimes.
The result is a cost effective and efficient fire management strategy that has been implemented since 1991. 

Fireplan Development for Landholders

By supplying satellite fire data, producing maps and incorporating local knowledge with current fire science, CYSF have been able to produce tailor-made fire plans for many of the Cape's stakeholders. In addition to this, fireplans covering neighbouring properties are promoting the use of collaborative regional fire-planning.

UHF Radio Tower Installation for Fire Management

In 2005 a better communication system was identified and CYSF obtained funding under the NHT2 process to install a series of fire towers across Cape York Peninsula to expand UHF radio coverage in the region. The repeaters have increased the effectiveness of fire management activity throughout Cape York and increased the safety of residents and tourists alike.

By forming an alliance with landholders and the Rural Fire Service, CYSF has organized a series of strategic incendiary burn programs. These programs arranged controlled fires that were timed to coincide with seasonal conditions so that the resulting safe cool burns promoted natural firebreaks before the onset of the fire season. The timing is imperative whereby fire is utilised to interact with the determining weather variables and moisture content of the vegetation or grass drying cycles. The objective being fire lit in the middle of the day will self-extinguish in the cool of night or upon a moist gully at that time of year.
 Essentially Cape York receives a monsoonal deluge every wet season resulting in high maintenance costs to roads and fire break trails over hundreds of kilometres. Aerial burning of fire breaks is also environmentally effective reducing any excess erosion as compared to manmade earth disturbed breaks.
The result of early dry season fires used frequently in the same location can change the structure of the vegetation type causing woody thickening or altering the biodiversity, therefore careful planning by property owners and managers alters and rotates the target areas for variable fire regimes.
The result is a cost effective and efficient fire management strategy that has been implemented since 1991.