Bushfire - a statement on research priorities for natural hazards emergency management in Australia

Throughout 2015-2017, emergency service agencies around Australia participated in workshops hosted by the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC to consider the major issues in natural hazards emergency management.

This publication on bushfires summarises the outcomes of one of these workshops and poses questions as a guide for a national research agenda in natural hazard emergency management.

Successive bushfires have significantly affected the lives, wellbeing and livelihoods of communities living within or near fire-prone forests and rangelands. Drought (made worse by climate change) and bushfire have also negatively affected the health and productivity of these ecosystems. Climate change will further increase bushfire risk and stress on human and natural communities.

Reducing the occurrence, severity and impact of bushfires, and enhancing the resilience of our natural ecosystems by managing fire in our forests and rangelands are core objectives of bushfire management. Local and regional actions contribute to the broader outcomes across the entire landscape. These outcomes need to reflect community values and expectations including:

• community protection
• the conservation of natural biodiversity (plant and animal species, habitat)
• the production of water, carbon, and timber
• the provision of tourism and recreation opportunities.

Developments in science and technology supporting fire behaviour modelling, fuel monitoring and weather prediction have led to significant improvements in the ability to provide predictive services support to communities, emergency services, land management agencies and business. Predictive services is a key contributor to:

• effective mitigation activities, such as fuel reduction burns
• community warning and information activities, such as issuing fire danger ratings
• response activities, such as fire behaviour analysis and issuing of emergency warnings and information.

Ensuring the availability of accurate input data, such as weather observations and fuel loads, is essential to the utility of any predictive modelling approach. The data covers an expanse greater than the entire land area of Australia and consequently accurate, affordable and timely technologies are required to gather this information if modelling approaches are to be effective.