Published works

This project aims to improve understanding of fire and atmosphere interactions and feedback processes through running the coupled fire-atmosphere model ACCESS-Fire.

Project deliverables include: preparation of meteorological and simulation case studies of significant fire events as publications; installation and testing of the ACCESS-Fire coupled model on the National Computing Infrastructure (NCI); and preparation of training material to support operational implementation of research findings.

The project started in March 2016, and progress over the past four years has delivered across several activities:

• ACCESS-Fire has been installed on NCI and substantial progress has been made in testing and developing the model.
• A meteorological case study of the Waroona fire has been published Meteorological drivers of extreme fire behaviour during the Waroona bushfire, Western Australia. The case study generated outreach activities across numerous agencies and jurisdictions.
• ACCESS-Fire has been successfully run on two fires; the Waroona fire in WA and the Sir Ivan fire in NSW. The simulations produced reasonably accurate predictions of fire spread, successfully captured cloud development consistent with pyrocumulonimbus and resolved complex atmosphere-fire interactions during downslope wind events that led to mass spotting events.
• The discussion paper ` Lessons Learned from Coupled Fire-Atmosphere Research and Implications for Operational Fire Prediction and Meteorological Products Provided by the Bureau of Meteorology to Australian Fire Agencies.  has been published.
• The manuscript `Simulations of the Waroona fire with the coupled atmosphere-fire model ACCESS-Fire' has been submitted to an international fire science journal
• The manuscript `Simulations of the Sir Ivan Dougherty fire with the coupled atmosphere-fire model ACCESS-Fire' has been submitted to an international meteorology science journal.
• The project team has participated strongly in outreach activities, including public seminars and media engagement through extended radio interviews and collaboration on print and online news articles.
• The project team has presented at numerous conferences and webinars with themes ranging across fire science, meteorology and computational modelling. Conference and panel presentations have been invited on topics including fire science, High Performance Computing, STEM careers and Women in Leadership.
• Operational support was requested by fire agencies and the Bureau during high-impact events during several fire seasons, the most extended of which was the 2019-20 fire season. Specialist meteorological support was provided in CFS and SES in SA, RFS in NSW and QFES in QLD during the protracted fire campaigns.
• Specialist training presentations and webinars have been invited from end-users and the CRC on numerous occasions and provided to audiences across multiple jurisdictions.

The project has demonstrably achieved the objective of building and sharing national capability in fire research and has provided fire and meteorology expertise during high impact events in support of end-users inside their operational centers.  That outcome is not a specific project deliverable and is to some degree intangible, so not as easily measured as outcomes such as publications.  However, it successfully realises the CRC objective of building collaborations and trusted partnerships and strengthening national capability. The operational support capability is recognised and valued across fire and land management agencies and in the Bureau.

To complete the project we will finalise publication of the draft papers to ensure that our key findings are documented in the scientific literature; this will expand the international body of knowledge from coupled modelling studies. 

We are pleased to bring the project to completion and are gratified that along the way we have shared a valuable legacy of knowledge on fire and atmosphere interactions.  We have also delivered an important capability in ACCESS-Fire that can provide ongoing benefit to the field of meteorology and fire prediction and to the Australian community into the future.

In the coming months we will continue our conversations with partners and end-users to establish plans for future use and development of ACCESS-Fire as the BNHCRC transitions to the new Disaster Resilience Research Institute.   ACCESS-Fire is an important research tool and has the potential to be a critical operational tool. It will assist in informing fire management decisions as we face increasingly hazardous scenarios in a changing climate.