[LINK] Bush Fire Speeds (was Re: home emergencies)

[Ivan Trundle]

On 20/02/2009, at 12:02 PM, Robin Whittle wrote:

> I read in The Age recently that 25 and above is "high" and that at
> Kilmore East, on 7 February, the FFDI was 180!  There was a
> suggestion of new categories for these higher figures, including
> "catastrophic".

I'm with people who know of these things right at this minute (in  
Melbourne): they say that the FFDI scale was originally set to range  
from 0 to 100, where anything over 50 was considered extreme, and of  
considerable risk to life and limb. The maximum, 100, was considered  
to be catastrophic: the FFDI was over 300 in many areas on the day of  
the fires. Loosely interpreted from the conversation moments ago, this  
resulted in a fire potential that was so far off the scale that no-one  
was able to either predict the force or spread of the fires that  
eventuated. No doubt the scale will be re-evaluated, but the message  
is that the fires were much, much bigger than ever before, and it came  
as no surprise to many in Emergency Services that something would  
happen - they just couldn't be sure exactly where.

iT