Dr Alex Holmes

Completed PhD student
About
Dr Alex Holmes

Dr Alexander Holmes’ PhD investigated the effects of soil moisture, temperature and precipitation extremes on fire risk and intensity, providing fire and land management agencies with a better understanding of the mechanics behind soil moisture deficits and their influence on fire intensity. Evidence through
the research showed that fire intensity increases logarithmically with decreasing moisture, Alex explained.

“The research showed that fire intensity increases logarithmically with decreasing moisture. This means that larger and more intense fires are likely to occur closer to population centres located around the coasts of Australia as climate change exacerbates drought conditions,” he said.

As part of the CRC project Improving land dryness measures and forecasts, Alex’s research was also used in establishing the high-resolution soil-moisture analysis system, JASMIN, which provides greater accuracy than previous models.

Alex now works as a scientific researcher at the NSW Rural Fire Service where he is responsible for producing computer programs and code to manipulate and create datasets, as well as analyse their physical properties. Part of this role includes researching potential improvements in the models used by the new National Fire Danger Ratings System.

His thesis is available here.

Student project

This project investigated the conditions leading to forest fires and their effect on fire intensity. The relationship between soil moisture and high temperature anomalies leading to increased forest fire risk was used to produce fire intensity risk maps, which will improve fire risk estimation and the forest fire danger indices.
Supervisory panel:
27 Aug 2019
The Australian Fire Danger Rating System Program is building a new fire danger rating system.
Investigating the effect of soil moisture, temperature and precipitation extremes on fires risk and intensity in Australia
19 Sep 2018
The frequency of extreme events such as heatwaves are expected to increase due to the effect of...
Variability of soil moisture proxies and hot days across the climate regimes of Australia
29 Jun 2017
Extreme temperature and deficits in soil moisture provide ideal conditions for bushfires. The...
Alex Holmes Conference Poster 2016
14 Aug 2016
Extreme temperature and deficits in soil moisture provide ample conditions for bushfires.
Improving Fire Risk Estimation through Investigating Fire Intensity, Moisture and Temperature Anomalies
18 Aug 2015
The accuracy of FDI's are largely dependent on their input variables and advancements in remote...

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