Mercury rising replay available

The replay of the live stream of the Mercury Rising: Extreme Bushfires industry and public forum is now available. Watch it here.

Mercury Rising: Extreme Bushfires took place on 23 September, with hundreds of people around Australia tuned in to the livestream to see a panel of Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC experts discuss the science of bushfires.

The Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC teamed with the SA Country Fire Service and the SA Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources for this RiAus event. As well as the live stream, a live audience of emergency management practioners and the general public watched from the studio at the Science Exchange in Adelaide. The full replay of the event is now available on the event page.

Speakers for the day were BNHCRC researchers Dr Mika Peace from the Bureau of Meteorology, Associate Professor Jason Sharples from the University of New South Wales, and Dr Josh Whittaker from RMIT University. Mika discussed the science of extreme fire weather, Jason talked about extreme bushfire behaviour, while the community behaviour in the face of extreme bushfire was covered by Josh.

Both the live audience and live stream viewers were involved as well, choosing the direction of the discussion in a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' style storyline using their smartphones or tablets.

The event was promoted widely throughout South Australia’s regional areas. Many of those tuning in were watching as part of group meetings for rural fire brigades and land management offices.