Wildfire activity in the mallee shrubland of Victoria, Australia

McArthur’s Fire Danger Indices were developed originally as empirical models to describe fire danger in dry sclerophyll forest and grasslands of Australia. These indices are now used widely in southeastern Australia for fire danger rating and as a guideline for the issue of fire weather warnings. Nine years of historical fire reports, fire danger indices and meteorological information have been analysed objectively to develop a model to predict days of high fire activity in the mallee shrubland of northwestern Victoria. Tested on two years of independent data it was found that the use of a simple model utilising standard meteorological observations rather than the McArthur Forest Fire Danger Index reduced the false alarm rate from 98.4% to 96.7%. Although apparently a small reduction in false alarm rate, over a two year period days of high fire activity predicted incorrectly were reduced dramatically by 345 days.