The CFA has a state-wide grassland curing network comprised of volunteers who report weekly on the state of grassland curing in their area. Weekly reports from the volunteers during the fire season provide CFA an overall picture of state-wide grassfire risk.
A unique training video has been developed to assist new and existing observers in how to visually distinguish grassland curing stages. The video describes the colour and seed development indicators at each 10% interval.
The training video is the first phase of the Grassland Curing and Fire Danger Rating project. The video supplements the Grassland Cuing Guide (which can be found: http://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/documents/curingguide.pdf) and provides the opportunity for volunteers to undertake training in the field.
Increasing the accuracy of grassland curing values assists in improving the accuracy of Fire Danger Ratings, as curing values are a key factor in grassland fire danger calculations.
A website has also been developed on Brigades Online, to share information between the CFA and the curing network volunteers. The training video can also be found on the website.
CFA staff and volunteers can access the website via Brigades Online:
http://cfaonline.cfa.vic.gov.au/
Brigades Online > Operations > Operations Projects > Grassland Curing
Future Plans
The project plans to produce future videos to assist in grassland curing estimation. The project is also looking at integrating other methods in assessing grassland curing, such as satellite imagery, to create an automated grassland curing system.
For further information about the Grassland Curing Network, please email grassland@cfa.vic.gov.au
Story by Rachel Bessell
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Great video... very informative, and nice and concise!! Well presented as well!! Good work.