Bushfire Building Impact Analysis (BIA) has become a core function of NSW Rural fire service operations. It involves an assessment of the impact of a bushfire on buildings and infrastructure within a community. BIA provides accurate and timely bushfire impact information to a range of key stakeholders including Incident Controllers, State Operations, the Commissioner, the Premier, Government Ministers, government departments, Insurance Council and the media. This information has proven to be invaluable during bushfire events as it offers a sound basis for the planning and execution of recovery operations.

The NSW RFS in collaboration with the CSIRO have developed a tablet based application to enhance the efficiency and accuracy of the BIA data collection process. The application was trialed during the Blue Mountains bushfires of October 2013. These fires resulted in the loss of 210 dwellings and caused damaged to an additional 150 houses. Spatial data on the impact of these bushfires was successfully captured and sent almost instantaneously back to a central source whilst BIA teams were operating on the fire ground.

The speed at which the number and location of affected buildings can be identified using the tablet based application has potential to enhance multiagency disaster recovery efforts in the future. The application also generates spatial data in a common format that can be readily shared across government departments.

This presentation will provide an outline of the evolution of BIA operations in NSW including the future of BIA operations and expansion of the application to assist with other elements of the disaster recovery. It will then focus on the development of the tablet based application through a partnership between CSIRO and NSW RFS. The presentation will involve a demonstration that provides the audience with an understanding on how the application operates and its capacity to transfer live data to a central source.