@article {bnh-8293, title = {Guidance framework for the selection of different fuel management strategies}, number = {716}, year = {2021}, month = {12/2021}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

Planned burning is one of the most utilised fuel management activities, but the safe application of this method is hindered by climate change (e.g. shrinking and shifting windows of opportunity) and adverse societal and environmental outcomes (e.g. smoke impact, risk of fire escape). For this reason, fire managers need access to detailed information to help them make informed decisions and select a fuel management strategy that is compatible with a range of factors.

This report focuses on the development and illustration of a general guidance framework that provides users with the information and knowledge they need to select suitable fuel management strategies for their particular circumstances, and hence assists them with preparing an effective fuel management plan. The framework is developed based on a review of literature and data collected from survey responses from local governments and their fire managers in Western Australia who conduct fuel management activities.

The framework provides information on a set of functions bushfire mitigation officers need to consider when developing fuel management plans for a range of fuel management techniques. The functions are divided into:

The fuel management techniques include:

The utility of the framework is illustrated on two hypothetical scenarios, representing situations where a user would like to ascertain relevant attributes of a set of candidate fuel management techniques and where a user would like to identify the best fuel management technique for a given situation.

}, keywords = {framework, Fuel management, guidance, strategies}, issn = {716}, author = {Amelie Jeanneau and Aaron Zecchin and Hedwig van Delden and Tim McNaught and Holger Maier} } @article {bnh-8292, title = {Identification of fuel management locations and risk reduction potential}, number = {715}, year = {2021}, month = {12/2021}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

Planned burning is one of the most utilised fuel management activities, but the safe and effective application of this method is likely to be hindered by climate change (e.g. shrinking and shifting windows of opportunity) and potential adverse societal outcomes (e.g. smoke impact, risk of fire escape). For this reason, fire managers need access to detailed information to help them make informed decisions and select a fuel management strategy that is compatible with a range of factors.

This project explored the use of experts{\textquoteright} knowledge and the UNHaRMED Decision Support System (DSS) framework (an integrated spatio-temporal model for analysing natural hazard risk within urban and rural environments) to identify areas where fuel management activities should be conducted within the study area and identify future bushfire risk reduction potential at identified hotspots.

The discussions with end-users resulted in the selection of five major areas to focus on for this study (i.e. Gingin, Kalamunda, Mundaring and Margaret River). The level of bushfire risk simulated in UNHaRMED for a baseline period indicated a good agreement with the perceived levels of bushfire risk at the rural-urban interface identified by the relevant bushfire management agencies. This observation therefore suggests that UNHaRMED is suitable for identifying areas of emerging risk under different climate change scenarios.

This research also highlighted that areas where fuel management activities are currently conducted in Gingin, Kalamunda, Mundaring and Margaret River overlap with areas of high bushfire risk modelled in UNHaRMED (rural-urban interface). This suggests that UNHaRMED is suitable for assessing the impact of fuel load mitigation activities a the rural-urban interface in WA.

The next step will be to run UNHaRMED simulations involving a range of future climate and population growth scenarios with and without fuel management activities (M2). This will then enable us to identify how bushfire risk changes for each scenario, where management activities are desirable, and where potential risk reduction will be possible (irrespective of management type) (D2).

}, keywords = {Fuel management, locations, potential, risk reduction}, issn = {715}, author = {Amelie Jeanneau and Aaron Zecchin and Hedwig van Delden and Tim McNaught and Holger Maier} } @article {bnh-8294, title = {Identifying opportunities for the use of different fuel management strategies in WA}, number = {717}, year = {2021}, month = {12/2021}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

Bushfire risk is likely to increase in the future due to the combined impacts of climate change and urban sprawl. Planned burning is one of the most utilised fuel management activities, but the safe application of this method is being threatened by climate change (e.g. shrinking and shifting windows of opportunity) and potential adverse societal outcomes (e.g. smoke impact, risk of fire escape). In order to address this issue, this report introduces a novel approach to determining the suitability of different fuel management approaches (e.g. forest thinning, scrub rolling, mulching, mowing/slashing, planned burning pile burning, chipping, grazing) in different areas using a combination of local knowledge/experience and spatial data analysis. The approach is applied to four areas of emerging bushfire risk in Western Australia identified in consultation with end-users, producing maps for different fuel management approaches that indicate where the application of particular fuel management approaches is suitable. These maps can be obtained for current and future conditions, therefore providing an assessment of which fuel management options are available to mitigate the impact in areas of emerging bushfire risk. The approach is generic and flexible and can be tailored to different locations based on information of local knowledge and experience.

}, keywords = {Fuel management, opportunities, strartegies}, issn = {717}, author = {Amelie Jeanneau and Aaron Zecchin and Hedwig van Delden and Tim McNaught and Holger Maier} } @article {bnh-8291, title = {Influence of climate change and fuel management on bushfire risk in Western Australia}, number = {714}, year = {2021}, month = {12/2021}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

Bushfire risk is likely to increase in the future due to the combined impacts of climate change and urban sprawl. This report presents the results of an analysis combining the outputs from stakeholder consultation with those from the Unified Natural Hazard Risk Mitigation Exploratory Decision Support System (UNHaRMED) to quantify increases in bushfire risk due to different population growth and climate change scenarios in four areas of emerging bushfire risk in Western Australia. Results indicate that increases in bushfire risks from 2018 to 2050 range between 23.9\% and 59.7\% (in terms of average annual loss), depending on the scenario and case study area considered. UNHaRMED is also used to assess the potential of mitigating these increases in risk via fuel load reduction.

Results indicate that fuel management can reduce future bushfire risk and that the decline in risk is positively correlated with an increase in the proportion of the landscape treated. However, our results suggest that in cases where fuel management does significantly reduce the risk of impacts posed by bushfires, this reduction was much less than an increase in risk from climate change.

It should be noted that this project focused on the rural-urban interface in alignment with the existing Bushfire Risk Management Planning approach adopted in Western Australia. As such, landscape-scale mitigation was not considered in this particular project, but would be an important consideration in future research.

}, keywords = {bushfire risk, Climate change, Fuel management, Western Australia}, issn = {714}, author = {Amelie Jeanneau and Aaron Zecchin and Hedwig van Delden and Tim McNaught and Holger Maier} }