In this seminar broadcasted on 15 May 2020, Dr Vinod Kumar (Bureau of Meteorology) describes the correlations between soil and fuel (vegetation) moisture content, showing that the soil moisture can give a good guide to live fuel moisture levels, and therefore flammability of those fuels, three weeks in advance.

The seminar discusses work done recently in collaboration with Marta Yebra (Australian National University) who, with her team, has developed the Australian Flammability Monitoring System in collaboration with the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC.

This work is of interest to fire and land managers looking to predict landscape flammability more effectively than current techniques permit, and to fire weather meteorologists providing weather-related guidance to those managers.

Read more about the CRC's Improving land dryness measures and forecasts project.