This project was commissioned and funded entirely by the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, Victoria. 

The project had two primary aims:

• better describe the characteristics of bushfires that have the greatest impact on house loss and the effect of land use planning responses in reducing bushfire risk; and
• validate the model against documented fire events.

These aims were met by providing:

• quantification of convective strength across the landscape and validate it against documented fire events;
• an algorithm to improve convective updraught strength to calculate maximum local wind strength;

• a better ember launch and transport model;

• a relationship between the modelled ember attack levels on dwelling ignition and spotfire development; and
• an improved PHOENIX RapidFire characterisation and improved understanding of bushfire risk and the assessment of treatment options for improved planning responses through the development of specific planning modules.