Friday, January 11, 2013

Australian bushfire alerts maps


Summer in Australia is very hot this year - temperatures are reaching 40+ degrees across the country. In this weather strong winds create very dangerous conditions where small bushfires can turn into raging infernos in matter of minutes. Each State and Territory fire and emergency authorities publish regular updates about local bushfires in their jurisdictions. However, for a consolidated, national perspective you have to turn to mapping applications maintained by private operators: The Australian Bushfire Map and The Early Warning Network’s Situation Room.





Both maps contain very similar information but display that information in different ways. For example, The Australian Bushfire Map focuses on presenting summaries of events, displayed as marker clusters and hotspots. The EWN’s Situation Room map displays all events, categorised according to alert level and with ability to filter by time and jurisdiction. These are great examples of private industry initiatives extending publicly available information and spreading it to the broader community.

First spotted on: Google Maps Mania 

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Disasters and maps