With the changing characteristics of vegetation in disturbed areas in the rural–urban interface, how can we improve our understanding of extreme fire behaviours in fragmented interface fuels to reduce risks and protect communities?
In the May Hazardous Webinar, attendees heard from fire experts about the Bushfire risk at the rural–urban interface project and perspectives from an end-user who uses the project outcomes.
Speakers:
- Prof David Bowman (The University of Tasmania)
- Dr Grant Williamson (The University of Tasmania)
- Melissa O'Halloran (NSW Rural Fire Service)
- Dr Rowena Morris (Natural Hazards Research Australia) host
Showcasing findings from the Bushfire risk at the rural–urban interface project, Prof David Bowman and Dr Grant Williamson described how researchers are combining geospatial data from bushfire disasters, biophysical assessment of fire risk in bushland interface and gardens and social research to understand community perceptions of fire risk, attitudes to fuel managements and barriers to creating fire-safe communities.
This project seeks to progress our understanding of how we can reduce risks at the rural urban interface through an integrated interdisciplinary project. Researchers are combining geospatial data from bushfire disasters, biophysical assessment of fire risk in bushland interface and gardens and social research to understand community perceptions of fire risk, attitudes to fuel managements and barriers to creating fire-safe communities.
The project outcomes will include developing decision-support tools for estimating risk of fire disaster and house loss, evaluating the effectiveness and social acceptability of interventions to reduce bushfire risk at landscape to garden-scale, identifying barriers to diverse community groups who want to use fire to manage fuels and developing and testing educational materials designed to drive individual and community bushfire adaptation.
Melissa O’Halloran provided an end-user perspective to the project and its methodology and discuss how the outcomes will be put into practice.