page_title: Aerial firefighting and forestry in southern Australia
section_title: Digital fire mapping and GPS navigation
hierarchical_section_title: Aerial firefighting and forestry in southern Australia / Mapping / Digital fire mapping and GPS navigation
caption_attribution_description: English: NASA’s Earth Observatory showing the Snowy River bushfire in Eastern Victoria, Australia at night in February 2014. The bushfire was roughly the same size as Melbourne. Also visible are fires at the Hazelwood coal mine and Kilmore. Source: NASA Earth Observatory
context_page_description: The development of aerial firefighting and forestry in southern Australia ran in parallel with the rapid improvements in aircraft technology over the last century. As more advanced and capable aircraft became available firefighters and foresters quickly sought opportunities to utilise and adapt them.
  Aircraft have three main advantages over ground resources: speed, access, and observation.
  Aircraft have been used for a wide range of tasks including reconnaissance, firebombing, crew transport, aerial ignition, back burning, gathering infrared imagery as well as operational forestry tasks like aerial photography, surveys, spraying, fertilising and seeding.
  Much of the early pioneering work in Australia was led by the Forests Commission Victoria in collaboration with other State forestry and fire authorities including the Western Australia Forests Department, Forestry Commission of NSW, Woods and Forest Department of South Australia and Forestry Tasmania. Federal agencies including the CSIRO also contributed significantly.
context_section_description: The geospatial revolution in bushfire mapping and navigation came of age when powerful computers and the internet converged with a number of new digital technologies including:
  Satellite imagery, aerial photographs and large plotters combining with powerful analysis tools found in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) during the 1980s.
  President Bill Clinton instructing the US military to switch off the accuracy-degrading selective availability on its Global Positioning System (GPS) on 1 May 2000 leading to satellite navigation devices becoming universally available for civilian use and making GPS an indispensable part of foresters and firefighters everyday lives.
  Rapid advances in high resolution digital imagery and aerial cameras from about 2001 leading to the demise of photographic film.
  Google Maps beginning as a "thought bubble" and a series of random scribbles on a white board in 2004 by Noel Gordon, one of the four men who founded the Sydney-based software company Where 2 Technologies. Google Earth developed separately in the US around the same time while Google Street View followed in 2007.
  Smartphones in June 2007 with inbuilt digital cameras, GPS, access to the Internet and Google Maps bringing all these technologies together into a powerful single device.
  Live steaming of digital images and weather data from observation aircraft to fire control centres over mobile phone and radio networks. Satellite imagery was useful in providing Statewide overviews in situations with multiple bushfire incidents.
  Development of propriety and in-house bushfire mapping systems such as Fireweb in the year 2000 combining with e-map and powerful predictive tools such as Phoenix Rapidfire in about 2009.
caption: NASA image showing the Snowy River bushfire in Eastern Victoria at night in February 2014. The bushfire which lasted for 70 days grew to 165 800 ha and was roughly the same size as Melbourne. Also visible are the fires at the Hazelwood coalmine and Kilmore. Source: NASA Earth Observatory.
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