Covey Associates is highly experienced in providing Bushfire Management & Ecology services. Our unique and award-winning team have many years of experience managing, modelling and preventing catastrophic bushfires across our country and the globe.
We employ the latest bushfire simulation software to provide a range of bushfire analytics, including CSIRO SPARK, Phoenix Rapidfire and our own fire weather software called Ember.
What We Do
Covey Associates is a Bushfire Management & Ecology services leader with extensive experience and an award-winning team. Our experts have spent years managing and modelling bushfires across Australia. We utilise the latest bushfire simulation tools, including CSIRO SPARK, QGIS, and our proprietary fire weather software, Ember and Inferno, to deliver comprehensive bushfire analytics.
Bushfire Analysis and Modelling
Bushfire impact analyses and fire behaviour modelling are often critical project components. It is vitally vital for project stakeholders to understand the risks associated with bushfires. We can model a range of scenarios with high accuracy. Our approach enables us to communicate these risks effectively and develop robust mitigation and risk management strategies. We work across various scales and industries, from urban development and land management to the energy sector. Our modelling includes radiant heat flux, prediction, ensemble fire modelling and historical simulation analysis.
Fire Weather Analysis
Weather is one of the five primary drivers of fire behaviour. It's crucial to analyse fire weather to understand potential fire behaviour. By leveraging Big Data, we analyse decades of weather data to determine return periods for the fire danger index, the fire behaviour index, and the seasonality and profiles of fire weather across Australia.
Fuel Surveys
Our bushfire team specialises in fuel characterisation, employing destructive and visual assessment techniques. We have conducted hundreds of fuel assessments, focusing on metrics essential for fire behaviour modelling and fuel management. Covey is the steward of one of Queensland's largest scientifically curated fuel data sets.
Expert Witness Services
We have handled numerous projects involving complex legal matters related to bushfire services. We focus on delivering the highest technical advice and reporting standard, prioritising accuracy and reliability. With a thorough understanding of the expert witness process, we strive to ensure timely and efficient resolutions.
Prescribed Burn Planning
Covey can plan and arrange prescribed burns on your behalf. Prescribed burns are a simple way to mitigate the bushfire risk by removing the fuel. It is an old indigenous treatment that we have adopted - because it works.
Fire Management Plans
Based on our simulation modelling, Covey develops cost-effective fire management plans and strategies to support local government risk analysis and policy and assist land developers and infrastructure partners in safeguarding their assets.
Our Team
Our bushfire consultants are capable of simulating a vast array of bushfires, recreating historical burns and modelling and assessing the risk potential of a bushfire in any location. We carry out fire behaviour analysis and use fire weather tools, techniques and applications which help us with land use planning, designing fire scenarios and land management.
We work on regional and local bushfire risk projects to provide scientifically robust and practical solutions to bushfire management problems.
Our team is experienced and capable of developing new techniques, including fire behaviour modelling, radiant heat flux modelling, fire weather analysis and development of on-ground fire activity documentation and specifications.
Our team has tertiary level qualifications in bushfire management as well as extensive fire ground level experience.
Anthony Power
Bushfire Technical Lead
Anthony founded the Covey Bushfire Team and specialises in fire behaviour, modelling, and weather analysis. With expertise in bushfire research, GIS, landscape design, and prescribed burn planning, he has led numerous complex and innovative large-scale bushfire analysis projects across Australia. Anthony is also a qualified Town Planner, Firefighter, and Registered Landscape Architect.
Marzia Coslan
Bushfire Team Leader
Marzia is the Bushfire Team Leader at Covey, with advanced skills in GIS, bushfire analysis, and modelling techniques. She excels in bushfire field assessment, including both destructive and visual fuel assessments. Marzia is a qualified environmental practitioner and firefighter. Marzia has delivered some of Covey's most innovative bushfire projects.
Dr Greg Penny
Senior Bushfire Engineer
Dr. Greg Penny is a distinguished bushfire practitioner, researcher, and fire engineer. As a highly experienced fire officer and Level 3 Incident Controller, Greg has authored numerous publications on bushfire engineering, including the seminal Bushfire Engineering Guidelines. He specialises in performance-based bushfire engineering solutions and expert witness work.
Linden Wears
Senior Bushfire Engineer
Linden is an FPA accredited Level 3 BPAD Practitioner with bushfire and fire engineering qualifications. He provides expert navigation through complex bushfire-related challenges and legislation, drawing on extensive experience. He is highly skilled at liaising with all levels of government and is a highly effective project manager.
Aaron Bulfin
Bushfire Consultant
Aaron is a skilled bushfire consultant with GIS, climate studies, engineering, and fire engineering qualifications. He has expertise in remote sensing for historical fire pattern analysis, fire climatic studies, fire modelling, field inspections, and developing fire management plans for local government and development projects. Aaron is also a Queensland Fire Service Remote Area Firefighting Team (RAFT) member.
Madeline Dooley
Bushfire Consultant/Fire Ecologist
Madeline is a bushfire consultant and fire ecologist specialising in report preparation, mapping, and field assessments. She is experienced in destructive and visual fuel assessments, has supported senior team members with complex bushfire analysis, and has authored several papers on fire ecology. She is skilled in flora surveys and fuel classification.
Dr. James Hilton
Senior Fire Modeller
Dr. James Hilton is renowned for his extensive contributions to bushfire modelling. As the principal research scientist behind SPARK, the Australian National Fire Simulator, he has published numerous papers on fire modelling. He is developing advanced fire modelling software solutions for the Wildland Urban Interface.
Calvin Tyer
Software Engineer
Calvin is a highly skilled software engineer who has developed several niche solutions for the Covey Bushfire Team. His work includes creating fire weather data cleaning tools, a patch and corridor filtering GIS plugin, climate change studies, fuel statistical analyses, GIS analytics, and assisting in software development of Covey's bushfire software solutions.
Our Expertise
Our Bushfire & Ecology Services see us working on projects across Australia including:
- Bushfire Hazard and Risk Assessments inclusive of:
- 2D Bushfire Attack Level (BAL) Assessments and Radiant Heat Flux Modelling
- Fire Weather Historical and Predictive Analysis
- Visual and Destructive Fuel Load Surveys
- Developing ‘what if’ scenarios and Engineering Design Fires
- Bushfire Management Plans encompassing:
- Fuel management
- Ecological burn intervals
- Fuel reaccumulation rates
- Evacuation Plans
- Statutory compliance
- Fire Behaviour Analysis (FBAN) and Predictive Modelling:
- Single ignition bushfires
- Bushfire Ensemble modelling
- Prescribed burn simulations and plan formulation
- Bushfire Research
- Education on Bushfire mitigation and preparation
- Media publications relating to bushfire
- Regional bushfire risk analysis
- Deconstructive fuel surveys
- Performance-based bushfire engineering solutions
- Expert Witness services.
Our Software
We employ the latest bushfire simulation software to provide a range of bushfire analytics, including CSIRO SPARK and our own fire weather software called Ember. Coveys was one of the first firms to use CSIRO’s SPARK software and we worked closely with the CSIRO to improve functionality.
We use CSIRO Spark Software to help us design custom fire propagation models to simulate potential bushfire behaviour across Australian landscapes. Through the software we can produce predictions, statistics and visualisations of bushfire rate of spread and intensity. This information can then be used in planning, warning and response, and research.
Case Studies
These are some of the Bushfire Management & Ecology projects we have been involved with:
Covey constructed a GIS and fuel model of KGari (Fraser Island) from scratch. We then created an ensemble fire behaviour model combined with fire weather inputs from our Ember software, accurately predicting the burn extents of the 2020 fires on the island.
Covey developed a fire behaviour model to characterise potential fire behaviour patterns and intensities within Hobart LGA under various fire weather scenarios. Combined with accurate building footprint data, at-risk communities, infrastructure, and ecological assets can be identified.
Deploying a host of the latest simulation technology, Covey completed an in-depth analysis of potential fire weather, fuel loads, heat flux and fire behaviour across the Sunshine Coast LGA. The project provided the fire behaviour analysis to inform the local planning scheme and Council fire management operations.
