Moreton Bay elevates fire trail management with property intelligence
Jul 2024
See how the pristine coastal City of Moreton Bay applies the latest technology to manage its fire trails in preparation for disaster season.
Jul 2024
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Over the 11 years he’s worked at the City of Moreton Bay in Queensland (QLD), Australia, Fire Management Officer Wayne Simpson has used various mapping programs for fire management planning.
All of them lead back to the same questions of what the ground currently look like now and if it has changed.
These questions sit at the center of FireMapper, the city’s fire management platform. FireMapper consolidates multiple basemaps, including Nearmap aerial imagery, and forms the basis of the team’s fire management planning each year. It works because the imagery underneath it is current, consistent, and stretches back far enough to show real change — not just a single snapshot in time.
City of Moreton Bay Mayor Peter Flannery says that kind of visibility is now essential to disaster preparedness.
“Council knows just how critical it is to have up to date and detailed information. Not only does this help enhance our already extensive knowledge of local areas and risk factors when it comes to land management, but it also comes to the fore during actual disasters.”
Peter Flannery, Mayor, City of Moreton BayReading the ground from the air
Following nearly four years of consistent heavy rain and flooding, the last few fire seasons have challenged fire management teams across the board. Adam Nicholas, Fire Management Coordinator for the City of Moreton Bay, explains why:
“The conditions compress what is called the ‘duff layer’ or the ground fuel – almost like a set of compressed heat bricks sitting on the ground – covered with a bit of vegetation growth from the heavy rain.”
That’s a hard thing to assess from the ground. With high-resolution aerial imagery, the team sees greater detail and tracks change through time, giving them a year-by-year view of how effective their fire management burns have actually been. Current and historical imagery, viewed side by side, shows the team exactly how conditions have evolved since the last burn, so planning reflects what’s on the ground today.
Smaller, easily accessible suburban burn sites can be checked on foot. Larger fire management areas, some covering hundreds of hectares of inaccessible bushland, are a different story.
“We do multiple burns, sometimes close to 30 throughout the year. It’s a lot quicker and easier to look from an aerial view to see where the fires carried through, and track where the impact has been more intense in some areas, due to factors such as vegetation, geographical features, and moisture levels,” said Wayne Simpson.
Wayne pulled up an example in the City of Moreton Bay mapping platform. The site was burnt 10 years ago, and is coming up for renewal.
“You can see internally areas where it has burnt really hot, and which area didn’t really burn at all because it was wetter.”
Planned burn, Elimbah QLD
Pre-and post-burn comparison
Current, comparable aerial data makes it possible for the team to measure burn intensity and recovery without a single site visit, then uses that record to decide what needs attention next. It also gives them an advantage when handling complaints and planning applications, since every claim can be checked against a clear, dated record.
From imagery to answers the team can act on
Adam and Wayne are part of the City of Moreton Bay team that manages the bush fire trails used by fire appliances.
Nearmap imagery within FireMapper and MapBrowser helps the team map, measure, and verify trails with far greater clarity than a physical survey allows. The ability to import KML files into MapBrowser and view fire trail outlines over time also helps the team spot potential access points and connecting trails before they’re needed.
This is where aerial capture turns into something closer to property intelligence. The imagery, elevation data, and mapping tools work together to create a insight-picture of the landscape that enables a decision.
“It’s a lot easier and quicker to do that investigative work from the desktop than it is to go out and walk a mountainside,” said Wayne.
For trails that need to be extended, rerouted, or linked to others, aerial imagery paired with elevation modeling shows the team the location, slope, and angle of the land before any work begins. That reduces the errors that lead to expensive reworks later.
The image below shows the elevation profile for a section of fire trail in Armstrong Creek, Moreton Bay.
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To see through dense vegetation and identify historical tracks, trails, and logging roads, the team will sometimes bring in LiDAR and satellite imagery. But it’s the ability to track change across time, consistently and at high resolution, that gives them a clear read on burn areas and where to prioritise next.
“Where the vegetation might have changed, maybe a new pest species has gotten in there, we can see that from an aerial perspective,” said Adam Nicholas.
Protecting what a fire trail crosses
Part of the team’s remit is spotting areas of historical and cultural significance hidden in the landscape, from vintage mills to World War II structures. One site of significance to traditional owners sits near Bribie Island, where traditional fish traps are visible in the shallow water just offshore. Some are visible from land at low tide, but their true scale and engineering only shows from above.
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When the team spots potentially significant sites, they pass the information to cultural heritage officers for an onsite visit. Broader knowledge of these locations stays protected to preserve them, while ongoing monitoring happens easily and non-intrusively with aerial imagery.
Precise, accurate aerial data also helps the city manage and moderate project costs. Cultural and environmental considerations, heavy vegetation, or safety requirements often mean crews need to stay strictly within a fire trail’s perimeter. Aerial insight gives the team a clear read on the trail location and the sweep-width required on each side for large vehicle clearance, so they know exactly where they need to be while keeping an eye on what’s happening in the inaccessible area around them, helping them better predict fire behavior.
“The intelligence we can gather before we arrive is critically important.”
Adam Nicholas, Fire Management Coordinator, City of Moreton BayMonitoring a changing coastline
Monitoring landscape change matters as much as monitoring the built environment. With regular imagery updates, the City of Moreton Bay tracks environmental shifts as they happen, like the sand build-up at the northern end of Bribie Island that closed the channel and linked the tip of the island to Caloundra.
Bribie Island, QLD
Left: Sep 2022 | Right: Jun 2024
Facing another challenging fire season, the City of Moreton Bay is better equipped to complete critical year-round maintenance tasks across wide areas, in less time, with greater accuracy and transparency. Current imagery, historical comparison, and elevation data brought together in the tools a team already relies on, so a desktop review stands in for a mountainside walk without losing any of the detail. That’s the practical result of property intelligence done well.
As cities across Australia continue to grow and develop, citizens in regions like Queensland’s Moreton Bay benefit from councils that embrace and apply progressive technology to plan and commit to long-term sustainability and liveability targets.
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