Paul Fox-Hughes
University of Tasmania, ACE CRC, Alumnus
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Background: We studied Riveaux Road Fire, which was ignited by multiple lightning strikes in January 2019 and burnt more than 637.19 km2 in southern Tasmania, Australia. Aims: We focused on fire weather, such as identification of dynamic... more
Background: We studied Riveaux Road Fire, which was ignited by multiple lightning strikes in January 2019 and burnt more than 637.19 km2 in southern Tasmania, Australia. Aims: We focused on fire weather, such as identification of dynamic wind and vegetation type, in a valley of the study area. Methods: We employed two methods: numerical weather model vertical sounding (NWMVS) and the use of a fire simulator, to quantify and examine the contribution of dynamic winds to fire behaviour. The NWMVSs allow rapid diagnosis of changes in wind, temperature, dew point temperature and cloud coverage. Prototype 2 is a fire simulator based on the specification of Australian Fire Danger Rating System (AFDRS). Key results: We found fires to be guided by terrain-forced channelling primarily and by downslope wind conditionally in the valleys. In addition, the fire intensity periodically changed with the magnitude of surface wind, in buttongrass moorland, in which the fire often smoulders, during the fire period according to the satellite image. Conclusions and Implications: Therefore, there should be caution for not only terrain and dynamic wind but also vegetation type during fire spread in rugged terrain.
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Although mountain areas account for approximately one fifth of the terrestrial surface, there has been less research focused on fire in these areas compared to lowlands. Mountain fires have distinct behavior due to dynamic winds... more
Although mountain areas account for approximately one fifth of the terrestrial surface, there has been less research focused on fire in these areas compared to lowlands. Mountain fires have distinct behavior due to dynamic winds interacting with the terrain, which can influence the fireline intensity and propagation. For the sake of fire safety of fire crews, it is essential to know how difficult to control the fire is in the mountain regions, with fireline intensity providing a useful indicator of risk and suppressibility. We studied one of the major disasters, wildfire, in Australia in such a highland by using the Great Pine Tier Fire, which occurred 15th January in 2019, ending up burning approximately 511.86km2. Weather and fire intensity at pseudo weather stations located at key points of fire progression were analyzed by wind vector maps and numerical weather model vertical sounding (NWMVS). Fire propagation was then simulated in Prototype 2, a fire simulator capable of detecting the potential for lateral fire channeling (LFC), and simulating fireline intensity using Australian vegetation sub-models. We found that the synoptic wind appeared to be modified by the interaction with the terrain in windward and the fire intensified the most in its leeward. In practice, the fire moved out of the valley axis and up its sidehill by following the wind which had been modified by local vertex of the curved valley axis before reaching this location.
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Extreme fire weather and fire behavior occurred during the New Year’s Eve period 30–31 December 2019 in southeast New South Wales, Australia. Fire progressed rapidly during the late evening and early morning periods, and significant... more
Extreme fire weather and fire behavior occurred during the New Year’s Eve period 30–31 December 2019 in southeast New South Wales, Australia. Fire progressed rapidly during the late evening and early morning periods, and significant extreme pyrocumulonimbus behavior developed, sometimes repeatedly in the same area. This occurred within a broader context of an unprecedented fire season in eastern Australia. Several aspects of the synoptic and mesoscale meteorology are examined, to identify contributions to fire behavior during this period. The passage of a cold front through the region was a key factor in the event, but other processes contributed to the severity of fire weather. Additional important features during this period included the movement of a negatively tilted upper-tropospheric trough, the interaction of the front with topography, and the occurrence of low-level overnight jets and of horizontal boundary layer rolls in the vicinity of the fireground. Significance Statemen...
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Flash flooding is a significant risk to public safety in Australia. It typically occurs over small spatial scales within 6 hours of the onset of rainfall and is generally difficult to predict. This is largely because of uncertainties in... more
Flash flooding is a significant risk to public safety in Australia. It typically occurs over small spatial scales within 6 hours of the onset of rainfall and is generally difficult to predict. This is largely because of uncertainties in forecasting the intensity and spatio-temporal distribution of heavy rainfall and the landscape response. This means that accurate forecasts of the timing and location of flash flooding are often not possible with certainty ahead of an event. These issues around the current predictive capability exacerbate existing communication challenges. Current approaches to flash flooding prediction, public information and warning are informed by evidence but are not yet sufficiently effective. A recent inquiry into severe rainfall and flooding events in Eastern Australia in 2022 highlighted the need for further research to improve predictions of extreme rainfall and associated impacts. Communicating the uncertainty in forecasts and predictions to enable emergen...
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Mountain fire can become more complex than fires at lower elevation due to the complex interaction of fire, topography, and weather. The Gell River Fire in Tasmania, Australia occurred in rugged terrain where there are abundant fire... more
Mountain fire can become more complex than fires at lower elevation due to the complex interaction of fire, topography, and weather. The Gell River Fire in Tasmania, Australia occurred in rugged terrain where there are abundant fire sensitive vegetation communities, as well as the presence of infrastructure including high-voltage transmission lines. The fire began at the end of December 2018 and lasted a few months, with a final burnt area of approximately 350km2 despite significant fire suppression effort. The fire was investigated by employing wind vector maps, numerical weather model vertical sounding charts (NWMVS) and Prototype 2, which is an integrated fire simulator and can detect lateral fire channeling (LFC). Our analysis of the fire found its spread was likely to be introduced into a valley by forced channeling (FC), which is modified synoptic wind, and showed rapid spread in the valley. The simulated fire also showed wider spread than the observed data in the valley, with...
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Wildfire, a natural part of many ecosystems, has also resulted in significant disasters impacting ecology and human life in Australia. This study proposes a prototype of fire propagation prediction as an extension of preceding research;... more
Wildfire, a natural part of many ecosystems, has also resulted in significant disasters impacting ecology and human life in Australia. This study proposes a prototype of fire propagation prediction as an extension of preceding research; this system is called “Cloud computing based bushfire prediction”, the computational performance of which is expected to be about twice that of the traditional client-server (CS) model. As the first step in the modelling approach, this prototype focuses on the prediction of fire propagation. The direction of fire is limited in regular grid approaches, such as cellular automata, due to the shape of the uniformed grid, while irregular grids are freed from this constraint. In this prototype, fire propagation is computed from a centroid regardless of grid shape to remove the above constraint. Additionally, the prototype employs existing fire indices, including the Grassland Fire Danger Index (GFDI), Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI) and Button Grass Moorla...
Epidemic thunderstorm asthma (ETA) is an emerging public health threat in Australia, highlighted by the 2016 event in Melbourne, Victoria, that overwhelmed health services and caused loss of life. However, there is limited understanding... more
Epidemic thunderstorm asthma (ETA) is an emerging public health threat in Australia, highlighted by the 2016 event in Melbourne, Victoria, that overwhelmed health services and caused loss of life. However, there is limited understanding of the regional variations in risk. We evaluated the public health risk of ETA in the nearby state of Tasmania by quantifying the frequency of potential ETA episodes and applying a standardized natural disaster risk assessment framework. Using a case–control approach, we analyzed emergency presentations in Tasmania’s public hospitals from 2002 to 2017. Cases were defined as days when asthma presentations exceeded four standard deviations from the mean, and controls as days when asthma presentations were less than one standard deviation from the mean. Four controls were randomly selected for each case. Independently, a meteorologist identified the dates of potential high-risk thunderstorm events. No case days coincided with thunderstorms during the st...
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Daily values of McArthur Forest Fire Danger Index were generated at ~10-km resolution over Tasmania, Australia, from six dynamically downscaled CMIP3 climate models for 1961–2100, using a high (A2) emissions scenario. Multi-model mean... more
Daily values of McArthur Forest Fire Danger Index were generated at ~10-km resolution over Tasmania, Australia, from six dynamically downscaled CMIP3 climate models for 1961–2100, using a high (A2) emissions scenario. Multi-model mean fire danger validated well against observations for 2002–2012, with 99th percentile fire dangers having the same distribution and largely similar values to those observed over the same time. Model projections showed a broad increase in fire danger across Tasmania, but with substantial regional variation – the increase was smaller in western Tasmania (district mean cumulative fire danger increasing at 1.07 per year) compared with parts of the east (1.79 per year), for example. There was also noticeable seasonal variation, with little change occurring in autumn, but a steady increase in area subject to springtime 99th percentile fire danger from 6% in 1961–1980 to 21% by 2081–2100, again consistent with observations. In general, annually accumulated fire...
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Fire danger is projected to increase across Tasmania under climate change, with the fire season starting earlier and lasting longer. Prescribed burning is currently the only effective method of managing bushfire risk at the landscape... more
Fire danger is projected to increase across Tasmania under climate change, with the fire season starting earlier and lasting longer. Prescribed burning is currently the only effective method of managing bushfire risk at the landscape scale in Tasmania. It is generally carried out during autumn and spring, when weather conditions allow low intensity burns to be safely managed. We investigated the changing opportunities for prescribed burning in Tasmania in the near future (2021-2040) and towards the end of the century (2081-2100) under a high emissions scenario (SRES A2). We assessed monthly changes in the climate variables that determine when prescribed burning can be applied, including rainfall, temperature, fuel moisture and atmospheric stability. We found that in the future, weather conditions conducive to safe, low intensity burning may occur less frequently. Increased Drought Factor and Soil Dryness Index in spring and autumn, resulting from rising temperatures and reduced rain...
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Fire danger indices integrate a number of weather parameters to estimate the effect on fire activity of ambient weather conditions. Climatologies of fire danger assist fire and land management agencies to plan effectively, and permit... more
Fire danger indices integrate a number of weather parameters to estimate the effect on fire activity of ambient weather conditions. Climatologies of fire danger assist fire and land management agencies to plan effectively, and permit assessment of trends and variability ...
Abstract A number of severe springtime fire weather events have occurred in Tasmania, Australia, in recent years. Two such events are examined here in some detail, in an attempt to understand the mechanisms involved in the events. Both... more
Abstract A number of severe springtime fire weather events have occurred in Tasmania, Australia, in recent years. Two such events are examined here in some detail, in an attempt to understand the mechanisms involved in the events. Both events exhibit strong winds ...
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Abstract Half-hourly airport weather observations have been used to construct high-temporal-resolution datasets of McArthur Mark V forest fire danger index (FFDI) values for three locations in Tasmania, Australia, enabling a more complete... more
Abstract Half-hourly airport weather observations have been used to construct high-temporal-resolution datasets of McArthur Mark V forest fire danger index (FFDI) values for three locations in Tasmania, Australia, enabling a more complete understanding of the range ...
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ABSTRACT Projected changes to the global climate system have great implications for the incidence of large infrequent fires in many regions. Here we examine the synoptic-scale and local-scale influences on the incidence of extreme fire... more
ABSTRACT Projected changes to the global climate system have great implications for the incidence of large infrequent fires in many regions. Here we examine the synoptic-scale and local-scale influences on the incidence of extreme fire weather days and consider projections of the large-scale mean climate to explore future fire weather projections. We focus on a case study region with periodic extreme fire dangers; southeast Tasmania, Australia. We compare the performance of a dynamically downscaled regional climate model with Global Climate Model outputs as a tool for examining the local-scale influences while accounting for high regional variability. Many of the worst fires in Tasmania and the southeast Australian region are associated with deep cold fronts and strong prefrontal winds. The downscaled simulations reproduce this synoptic type with greater fidelity than a typical global climate model. The incidence of systems in this category is projected to increase through the century under a high emission scenario, driven mainly by an increase in the temperature of air masses, with little change in the strength of the systems. The regional climate model projected increase in frequency is smaller than for the global climate models used as input, with a large model range and natural variability. We also demonstrate how a blocking Foehn effect and topographic channelling contributed to the extreme conditions during an extreme fire weather day in Tasmania in January 2013. Effects such as these are likely to contribute to high fire danger throughout the century. Regional climate models are useful tools that enable various meteorological drivers of fire danger to be considered in projections of future fire danger.
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Climate projections are essential for studying ecological responses to climate change, and their use is now common in ecology. However, the lack of integration between ecology and climate science has restricted understanding of the... more
Climate projections are essential for studying ecological responses to climate change, and their use is now common in ecology. However, the lack of integration between ecology and climate science has restricted understanding of the available climate data and their appropriate use. We provide an overview of climate model outputs and issues that need to be considered when applying projections of future climate in ecological studies. We outline the strengths and weaknesses of available climate projections, the uncertainty associated with future projections at different spatial and temporal scales, the differences between available downscaling methods (dynamical, statistical downscaling and simple scaling of Global Circulation Model output), and the implications these have for ecological models. We describe some of the changes in the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), including the new Representative Concentration Pathways. We highlight some of the challenges in using model projections in ecological studies and suggest how to effectively address them.
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Wildfires are not only a natural part of many ecosystems, but they can also have disastrous consequences for humans, including in Australia. Rugged terrain adds to the difficulty of predicting fire behavior and fire spread, as fires often... more
Wildfires are not only a natural part of many ecosystems, but they can also have disastrous consequences for humans, including in Australia. Rugged terrain adds to the difficulty of predicting fire behavior and fire spread, as fires often propagate contrary to expectations. Even though fire models generally incorporate weather, fuels, and topography, which are important factors affecting fire behavior, they usually only consider the surface wind; however, the more elevated winds should also be accounted for, in addition to surface winds, when predicting fire spread in rugged terrain because valley winds are often dynamically altered by the interaction of a layered atmosphere and the topography. Here, fire spread in rugged terrain was examined in a case study of the Riveaux Road Fire, which was ignited by multiple lightning strikes in January 2019 in southern Tasmania, Australia and burnt approximately 637.19 km2. Firstly, the number of conducive wind structures, which are defined as...
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Wildfire is one of the most complex natural hazards. Its origin is a combination of anthropogenic factors, urban development and weather plus climate factors. In particular, weather and climate factors possess many spatiotemporal scales... more
Wildfire is one of the most complex natural hazards. Its origin is a combination of anthropogenic factors, urban development and weather plus climate factors. In particular, weather and climate factors possess many spatiotemporal scales and various degrees of predictability. Due to the complex synergy of the human and natural factors behind the events, every wildfire is unique. However, there are indeed common meteorological and climate factors leading to the high fire risk before certain ignition mechanismfigures occur. From a scientific point of view, a better understanding of the meteorological and climate drivers of wildfire in every region would enable more effective seasonal to annual outlook of fire risk, and in the long term, better applications of climate projections to estimate future scenarios of wildfire. This review has performed a comparison study of two fire-prone regions: southeast Australia including Tasmania, and the Adriatic coast in Europe, especially events in C...
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Forest fire danger indices are calculated for a number of Tasmanian locations over an extended period. Significant features of the resulting climatology include: the existence of a springtime peak in fire danger in eastern and... more
Forest fire danger indices are calculated for a number of Tasmanian locations over an extended period. Significant features of the resulting climatology include: the existence of a springtime peak in fire danger in eastern and southeastern Tasmania (although with substantial interannual variability); an apparent trend of increased severity of southeast Tasmanian springtime fire weather events; and differences in diurnal behaviour between the elevated location examined and those at lower levels.
Fire managers in the Parks and Wildlife Service Tasmania (PWS) have been provided with new and updated decision making tools to aid in the development of the planned burning strategy for the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area... more
Fire managers in the Parks and Wildlife Service Tasmania (PWS) have been provided with new and updated decision making tools to aid in the development of the planned burning strategy for the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area (TWWHA). The landscape scale fire regime model FIRESCAPE-SWTAS has been updated to provide an enhanced capability to assess PWS planned burning strategies for the TWWHA. This has been achieved through: updates to vegetation data and other spatial input data expansion of the model domain to encompass the entire TWWHA and influential adjacent reserves and vegetation westward of the TWWHA implementation of a new facility to ingest gridded weather data, such as the new high resolution BARRA products implementation of a planned burning strategy currently under development by PWS, as part of the TWWHA Fire Management Plan. The updates to FIRESCAPE-SWTAS also provide an enhanced capability to assess impacts of climate change on fire regime in TWWHA through the a...
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Rainfall in the weeks leading to the fire ignition had been sporadic. While December rainfall had been close to average, the three months leading up to the start of January had generally seen below average rainfall in the vicinity of the... more
Rainfall in the weeks leading to the fire ignition had been sporadic. While December rainfall had been close to average, the three months leading up to the start of January had generally seen below average rainfall in the vicinity of the ignition area (Fig. 3a, b). Rainfall of 10-15 mm had occurred in the 24 hours to 0900 EDST (Eastern Daylight Savings Time) 22 December but there was subsequent no rainfall. Fuel availability calculations indicated that moorland fuels were available to burn when ignition occurred on 27 December. While sufficient antecedent rainfall had occurred to prevent the fire from spreading freely into many wet forest areas at that time, some rainforest areas, particularly about forest margins, were drier than others and available to burn.