The New South Wales Rural Fire Service headquarters during the state's peak day. Photo: Anthony Clark, New South Wales RFS.
While firefighters have battled ferocious blazes around the country in recent weeks, the impact of Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC research has been on show in the operations centres and media commentary.
The New South Wales Rural Fire Service, Queensland Fire and Emergency Services and the South Australia Country Fire Service all benefited from the expertise of individual researchers, requesting the assistance of Dr Marta Yebra, Dr Jason Sharples and Dr Mika Peace at their state operations centres.
Satellite mapping
Dr Yebra from the Australian National University and lead researcher from the Mapping bushfire hazards and impact project spent NSW’s peak fire day, Tuesday 12 November, at the New South Wales Rural Fire Service (RFS) headquarters in Sydney working with fire managers analysing data on vegetation conditions and how this might affect bushfire spread.
“Our research is being used here by the RFS to make informed decisions about where a fire may spread, and what areas should be prioritised when sending resources and equipment,” Dr Yebra said.
Her research project uses remote sensing techniques from satellites that allows fire services and land managers to fuel conditions and flammability. The outputs are available in the Australian Flammability Monitoring System.
In addition, the NSW Rural Fire Service had access to the work of the Fire surveillance and mapping project detecting fire hotspots from the Himawari satellite. This research is led by Prof Simon Jones and Dr Karin Reinke at RMIT University.
Bushfire behaviour
Dr Jason Sharples from the University of New South Wales, lead researcher on the Fire coalescence and mass spotfire dynamics project, was a part of the constant dialogue between fire behaviour analysts and ground operations at the RFS.
Dr Sharples’ focus during NSW’s peak day was on the Gospers Mountain and Myall Creek Road fires, working alongside Australian Capital Territory Government Risk Analyst Rick McRae and pointing out extra risks firefighters may face with spotfires and fire coalescence.
He also provided the RFS with expert scientific assistance on the potential for dynamic fire propagation giving real-time recommendations and support to the incident control and operation officers.
Fire weather expertise
It isn’t the first time that an emergency management agency has requested the assistance of fire weather expert and CRC researcher Dr Mika Peace from the Bureau of Meteorology. During last year's Queensland fires Dr Peace was on hand at the Queensland Fire and Emergency Services control centre in Brisbane, and QFES requested her expertise again during their most recent bushfires.
Dr Peace, who heads the Coupled fire-atmosphere modelling project, was called in to assist with emergency planning and forecasting for Queensland before the series of bad fire weather days in mid-November.
Dr Peace was back in Queensland last weekend, spending three days working closely with fire behaviour analysts in QFES’s Predictive Service’s division as the Bureau of Meteorology’s embedded meteorologist.
Dr Peace has also been the embedded meteorologist for the South Australian Country Fire Service during recent bushfires mapping out likely scenarios of bushfire spread and analysing pressure points fire agencies are likely to face.
Research in the media
Expert, informed opinion in the media has been critical to shape the public discussion of the bushfires. With extensive media coverage of the bushfires, the CRC is recognised as an authoritative source of information, both within Australia, as well as overseas.
CEO Dr Richard Thornton and Research Director Dr John Bates have provided expert, informed opinion, on a variety of topics including why the bushfire season has been so challenging, the role of climate change in lengthening bushfire seasons, our changing demographics and how people understand their bushfire risk and react to warnings. Dr Thornton and Dr Bates have featured across television, radio, print and online coverage of the fires. This has included ABC TV, SBS TV, ABC AM, SBS online, 3AW Mornings with Neil Mitchell, ABC Melbourne The Conversation Hour, ABC Brisbane Mornings, ABC NSW Statewide Drive, ABC online, The Australian, The Age, The Herald Sun, The Canberra Times, The Guardian, The Australian Business Review, news.com.au, New Scientist, CNN International, BBC World News and Triple J’s Hack.
Many CRC researchers have also provided expert comment through the media and The Conversation - Andrew Gissing (Risk Frontiers), Dr Mel Taylor (Macquarie University), Prof Ross Bradstock (University of Wollongong), Dr Owen Price, (University of Wollongong), Dr Douglas Brown (Western Sydney University), Dr Josh Whittaker (University of Wollongong), Dr Katharine Haynes (University of Wollongong), Prof Alan March (University of Melbourne), Prof Mehmet Ulubasoglu (Deakin University) and A/Prof Trent Penman (University of Melbourne).