Published works

Wildfires are a worldwide phenomenon that can cause significant damage to ecosystems, life and property (Gill 2005; Bowman et al. 2009). Every year in Australia large, uncontrolled fires burn in a variety of landscapes destroying economic, environmental and social assets (Williams et al. 2011). But wildfires are also a natural, inevitable and vital element of the Australian environment that cannot (and should not) be eliminated (Pyne et al. 1996; Pyne 2006). Hence fire management must be an integral part of land and ecosystem management (Bradstock et al. 2012b; Burrows and McCaw 2013).

In recent years, the frequency and severity of large wildfires have increased in most of the vegetated landscapes around the world (Bowman et al. 2009), including Australia. For instance, the fires of Black Saturday on February 2009 caused the highest loss of life and property from a wildfire in Australian history (Teague et al. 2010). The total cost of the Black Saturday fires was estimated to be AU$4.2 billion (Attiwill and Adams 2013). These large fires and losses occur despite advances in fire-fighting technology, greater suppression capacity, considerable suppression efforts, and record expenditures in wildfire suppression (Toman et al. 2011; Attiwill and Adams 2013).