Published works

In the last decade, there have been extreme wildfire events around the world resulting in substantial social, economic and environmental impacts. They threaten many lives and cost billions of dollars in damage. Climate change is making the fire seasons around the world even worse by extending the number of dry and hot days [1-4]. A longer fire season is expected to result in more frequent and severe fires [5, 6]. Australia’s bushfire season 2019/20 (Black Summer fires hereafter) appears to have supported these conclusions in terms of the ecological consequences and impacts on human populations [7].

In most cases, these consequences are the result of dynamic fire behaviours (DFBs) [8-11]. The DFBs are localised dynamic events that occur within fires, whereby physical feedbacks greatly enhance fire intensities and rates of spread. Understanding and having the ability to predict DFBs in wildfire events is essential to ensure the safety of communities living in or near the Wildland-Urban Interface.

In this regard, the project ‘Determining threshold conditions for extreme fire behaviour’ was focused on the understanding and analysis of dynamic fire effects; their influence on fire behaviour and structures; and the potential of including these effects in fire behaviour models and new building standards.