NPWS Overall Fuel Hazard Assessment (OFH)

This dataset contains a standardised assessment of the Overall Fuel Hazard at a location and point in time.

NPWS requires a consistent and defendable fuel assessment process to support fire management. Several fuel assessment methods are currently available for use in south-east Australia, two of these are:

• The Overall Fuel Hazard (OFH) Guide (McCarthy et al. 1999), and
• Project Vesta (Gould et al. 2007).

NPWS Fire Management Manual Policy specifies the use of the Overall Fuel Hazard Guide 3rd Edition (McCarthy et al. 1999). This is the specified fuel assessment tool in Bushfire Management Coordinating Committee policy and must be used, as a minimum, by NPWS when measuring pre- and post-fuel hazard for prescribed burning operations.

The University of Wollongong has identified that the 3rd and 4th editions of the OFH Guides can generate very different results from the same sample point, with the 4th edition commonly providing higher fuel hazard ratings, which has implications for risk management planning, burn intervals and burn prescriptions.

From 27th June 2019 the collection process was streamlined to only capture the data required for the operational OFH calculation. Prior to this extra fields were being collected to form a dataset that could be utilised for research purposes. Fire Management Circular 2019/06 has more details but the changes are summarised below.

1. Nine fields have been removed from the form and are no longer required to be captured.
2. Vegetation type is now mandatory.
3. If Heathland/Shrubland vegetation type is selected, only two OFH fields are required.
4. Equivalent fuel load (t/ha) is now calculated automatically by Elements.