Fire science across the North

The first of the new-look Research Advisory Forums attracted 55 participants to Darwin in early April to discuss research projects relevant to northern Australia.

The diverse program brought together practitioners and researchers with fire, economics, communications and community risk management expertise to explore how the knowledge emerging from research programs across Australia is influencing and could be of benefit to Northern Australia, and how new techniques and planning concepts could be adopted.

Hosted by Bushfires NT and Charles Darwin University, the meeting was opened with an overview of the need for science in emergency management by Ken Baulch, the Director of Policy and Planning at Bushfires NT.

Brief presentations by 12 researchers were followed by an afternoon of break out sessions and a final group discussion.

All the presentations from this RAF will soon be uploaded to this page.

The format for the RAFs has evolved many times since the CRC began in 2013 to reflect the current needs of the research. The latest change has a greater focus on the utilisation of research, rather than a focus on individual projects. The new RAF format has been reduced from two days to one day and there is an increase in the number of RAFs each year from two to seven. Where possible, these RAFs are run adjacent to other events or activities.

In Darwin, this RAF was followed by the annual two-day North Australia Fire Managers Forum. Partner agencies and researchers were encouraged to attend both the RAF and the NAFM meeting, and many took up this opportunity.

The planned RAFs for 2019 are listed here.

This new approach to the RAFs recognises the strong links between projects and promotes discussions involving a more diverse group of stakeholders. One of the expected outcomes from the RAFs in 2019 will be greater clarity on the ways in which the CRC’s research can be utilised within our end user organisations and what needs to be done to achieve that outcome.