Australian grassland fire danger using inputs from the GRAZPLAN grassland simulation model

Abstract

Assessing and broadcasting the Fire Danger Rating each day of the fire season is an important activity in fire-prone nations. For grasslands in Australia, grass curing and biomass are biological variables that are not usually archived yet as inputs, along with weather data, to the calculation of Grassland Fire Danger Index (GFDI) and potential fire intensity. To assess past changes in the index, the biological inputs for GFDI for Canberra in south-eastern Australia were obtained using a pasture simulator, GRAZPLAN. Shoot biomass (including leaf litter) and grass curing were modelled using three contrasting pasture models (exotic annual, exotic perennial and native perennial) in order to calculate two variants of McArthur’s GFDI Mark 4 (the original and a modified version which includes fuel load); values were either capped at 100 as in the original (the ‘worst possible’ condition) or left open-ended. GFDI, and the potential fire intensity for fires burning with the wind each afternoon during a 54-year period were calculated. The native perennial grass model gave contrasting results to those from the exotic perennial grass model, whereas the annual grass model usually was intermediate in behaviour. GRAZPLAN outputs allow not only retrospective examination, but also provide a basis for predicting potential fire danger and behaviour as a result of climate change.