More fire protection for Collie-Harvey region

27/12/02
The Department of Conservation and Land Management has commissioned a new fire lookout tower in the Collie-Harvey region.
The 20m tower is on Mt William in the Waterous forest block, 10km east of Yarloop.
Environment and Heritage Minister Dr Judy Edwards said the new facility replaced a shorter tower that had been used for almost 40 years but had become unsafe because of termite attack.
The new tower is steel and includes a glassed-in cabin.
"Fire lookout towers are an integral part of the department's fire detection system," Dr Edwards said.
"There are 14 operational towers throughout the forest areas, from Wabling in the pine plantations north of Perth through to Mt Frankland in the Warren region.
"The towers are staffed every day between December and April and provide crucial back-up to the department's surveillance fleet of eight Champion Scout aircraft."
Dr Edwards said visibility from the new tower extended from along the coastal plain from Mandurah to Bunbury and to farmland to the east of the jarrah forest belt. It also had direct line of sight contact with another tower at Mt Solus near Dwellingup to the north.
The department, in collaboration with the Bureau of Meteorology, also has installed a new automatic weather station (AWS) in Collie.
It is one of 90 in the State and one of 12 that provides information specifically for fire weather forecasting.
Every hour, the bureau can access information from the station through a phone line directly linked to its West Perth headquarters. The AWS provides information on the wind speed and direction, temperature, humidity and rainfall. These are among the major factors that influence fire behaviour.
The station includes an anemometer set 10m above ground level and electronic temperature and humidity probes are housed in a Stevenson screen. A rain gauge installed in the ground automatically measures rainfall.
Having 24-hour coverage allows forecasters to monitor current weather conditions more accurately, which in turn allows them to monitor the performance of the computer model forecast, so they can quickly see when the model is not accurately representing current conditions.
It also allows for monitoring of the forecasts issued by the bureau's fire weather desk, and again if there are significant departures from the forecast by the actual conditions, then forecasts can be quickly modified and updated.
Trying to forecast fire weather behaviour without a good network of surface observations is next to impossible, and the addition of the new AWS at Collie will give the forecasters a better idea of current conditions in the area and lead to more useful forecasts.
Over time, the AWS will also prove invaluable as a research tool, as the bureau will be able to build up a better understanding of local weather conditions in the Collie area with the increase in the number of observations that it now can receive.
Minister's office: 9222 9211