Information Response - Email 1 of 2 MCU16/0153 & REC16/0041

  Table 1 - Hazard scores and associated fire behaviours for various vegetation communities (Table
                                       A3.1 App 3 SPP1/03)
Vegetation communities1               Fire behaviour                                        Hazard score

Wet sclerophyll forest, tall          Infrequent fires under severe conditions,                                 10
eucalypts (>30 m), with grass         flame lengths may exceed 40 m, floating
and mixed shrub understorey.          embers attack structures for 1 hour,
                                      radiant heat and direct flame are
                                      destructive for 30 minutes.

Paperbark heath and                   Fire intensity depends on fuel                                            8
swamps, eucalypt forest with          accumulation, but can be severe, with
dry-shrub ladder fuels.               flame lengths to 20 m, spot fires frequent
                                      across firebreaks, radiant heat and direct
                                      flame for 15 minutes.

Grassy eucalypt and acacia            Fire intensity may be severe with flame                                   6
forest, exotic pine plantations,      lengths to 20 m, but less attack from
cypress pine forests, wallum          embers.
heath.

Native grasslands (ungrazed),         Fast moving fires, available to fire annually                             5
open woodlands, canefields.           to 4 years. Usually no ember attack,
                                      radiant heat for >10m, duration <2
                                      minutes.

Intact acacia forests, with           Fires infrequent, usually burn only under                                 4
light grass to leaf litter,           severe conditions, relatively slow fires,
disturbed rainforest.                 usually little ember attack.

Orchards, farmlands, kikuyu           Fires very infrequent, slow moving, may be                                2
pastures.                             difficult to extinguish, frequent fire breaks.

Grazed grasslands, slashed            Grazing reduces intensity and rate of                                     2
grass.                                spread of fire, duration <2 minutes.

Desert lands (sparse fuels),          Gaps in fuel, usually slow fire spread.                                   1
mowed grass.

Intact rainforest, mangrove           Virtually fireproof.                                                      0
forest, intact riverine
rainforest.
1 Vegetation assessment should be based upon examination of the vegetation on the subject site and surrounding the subject site.

Narrow strips of vegetation may be flammable; however, bushfires will not generally reach their full intensity where bushfire fronts
are less than 100 metres wide. For this reason the following examples may be viewed as having the next lower hazard score (i.e.
paperbark heath would have a score of 6 not 8, cypress pine forest 5 not 6):
         areas with a linear shape (e.g. roadside vegetation beside a cleared paddock); and
         units of vegetation less than 50 hectares in area and more than one kilometre from the nearest extensive vegetation.



4.2.2.2      Slope

As a general rule, bushfire intensity and the rate of spread of bushfires rises in proportion to
slope, with bushfires burning faster uphill and slower downhill. Studies have shown that the
speed and intensity of fires moving up slopes generally doubles every 10 degrees of slope
(SPP1/03). Steeper slopes also increase the difficulty of constructing ring roads and
firebreaks and limit the access for emergency crews.

Table 2 presents the hazard scores for different categories of slope.




                                                 Bushfire Management Plan
February 2015                                                                                                   Page 11
                                            215 David Low Way, Peregian Beach
                                                  Scanlon Property Group