Using NAFI Fire Data in CyberTracker and Google Earth
NAFI (North Australia Fire Information)
The NAFI website is the leading source of fire data and information for north Australian land
managers.
Since 2003, NAFI has been supplying fire management data detected by satellites, including
locations of recent fires and maps of recently burnt country via a web-based mapping interface.
Indigenous land managers routinely use NAFI information to help plan their controlled burns, to
monitor burnt and unburnt areas, and as a base layer to view the fire data they collect in the
field with I-Tracker applications.
Visit the NAFI website to find out more http://www.firenorth.org.au/nafi2/about/about.htm
You can download NAFI fire data as a map layer that can be viewed in CyberTracker, as well as
being available to view in Google Earth. And it is also possible to export I-Tracker data from
CyberTracker to Google Earth to overlay this information.
Downloading NAFI data to use in CyberTracker
Data can be downloaded from the NAFI website either as image files or as vector map layers i.e.
points (for fire hot spots) and polygons (for fire history and fire scar data). Either format can be
utilised in CyberTracker.
Image files are available as TIFF files that can be used as a map layer or background:
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Date:23/07/2014
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Vector map layers are available as a Shapefile (.shp) that can be added as layer to a loaded map:
To download the data, visit the NAFI website http://www.firenorth.org.au/nafi2/ .
Click on ‘Download Data’ in the menu. Click on the data you would like to download.
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Date:23/07/2014
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A new window will open (shown below) with information about the data you have selected.
There is another link to click at the bottom to actually download the data.
Once you click the link, a new page will open listing the data available as Image or Shape files.
The files are .zip files. Click on the .zip file for the data you want and save it onto your computer.
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Date:23/07/2014
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When you open the .zip file, there will be a more files inside than just the TIFF image file or
Shapefile. This is because map layer files generally have associated files which are necessary to
produce the data on a map e.g. the TFW file when you download an image contains the
georeferencing information that puts the image in the right place on the map. Therefore, you
will need to keep all files from the .zip folder.
Example of downloaded image files from the .zip folder:
Example of downloaded Shapefiles from the .zip folder:
To add TIFF images or Shapefiles to CyberTracker click on ‘View Properties’ in the map view of
the Reports mode of CyberTracker:
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Date:23/07/2014
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To add an image, click on the ‘Image’ tab, click the 3 dots ‘…’ to browse to the TIFF image file
saved on your computer, and open:
To add a Shapefile layer, click on the ‘Layers’ tab, click ‘Add’, browse to the .shp file saved on
your computer, and open:
Fire data can be overwhelming to look at. It is extensive and detailed. There are many polygons
breaking up the fire data features in different ways depending on the data you choose, for
example ‘Fire History’ data includes polygons breaking up areas into years since last burnt (1 year
since last burnt, 2 years since last burnt, etc.).
Therefore, if adding NAFI data as Shapefile layers to CyberTracker you may want to consider
using the ‘Class breaks’ feature to manage the information and visualise it more simply. ‘Class
breaks’ can organise your data into categories based on unique values or rangers of values. There
is a help document Creating Class Break in Data Layers available from the NAILSMA website to
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Date:23/07/2014
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use this feature. Below is an example of using class breaks to simplify some ‘years since last
burnt’ data downloaded from the NAFI website. In this example, 0-3 years since last burnt, 4-6
years since last burnt, 7-9 years since last burnt and 10+ years since last burnt will appear in
different shades of green on the map.
Viewing NAFI fire data and I-Tracker fire data in Google Earth
Google Earth is free software and can be downloaded here
http://www.google.com/earth/download/ge/agree.html.
You can overlay CyberTracker data with NAFI Fire data in Google Earth. First, from the NAFI
website you can load all NAFI fire data into Google Earth. Then you can export CyberTracker field
data from I-Tracker applications (for example fire data collected using the I-Tracker Land Patrol
application or the I-Tracker NAFI Fire Ground Truthing application) to Google Earth.
STEP ONE:
To add NAFI data to Google Earth, choose ‘Google Earth, WMS’ from the side menu on the home
page of the NAFI website. Click on the ‘Google Earth’ button. A new page appears and you can
choose the fire data you want to see in Google Earth:
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Date:23/07/2014
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Once you choose the data you want by clicking on it, a .kmz Google Earth file will automatically
download. Open this file and it will appear in Google Earth. You can expand the file and tick on
and off different features of the data. For example, from ‘Fires scars by month data 2000-2013’
you may only want to see 2013 data, so you can untick all of the other years:
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Date:23/07/2014
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STEP TWO:
To add I-Tracker fire data to Google Earth, first select these data using an appropriate query in
the ‘Query Editor’ of the CyberTracker Reports mode. Then click ‘Export’ and save the file as a
Google Earth file.
When you save this file, a small window will pop-up asking if you would like to launch Google
Earth. Click yes, and the data will appear in Google Earth:
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Date:23/07/2014
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You can also open .kmz (or sometimes .kml) Google Earth files anytime by simply double clicking
on the file itself. You can choose the File –> Open option in the menu bar of Goggle Earth itself.
Please do not hesitate to contact an I-Tracker Officer at [email protected], or call 08 8946
7673, if you need any assistance with using NAFI data in CyberTracker or Google Earth.
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Date:23/07/2014
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