In January 2023 the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre (BNHCRC) released a tranche of reports on research emerging from the Black Summer fires of 2019-2020.
The CRC received $2 million from the Australian Government to explore immediate issues arising from the fires. The CRC and partner agencies also allocated funds for more specific research projects. The research was based on the main issues identified in various inquiries, and grouped into four broad themes: fire predictive services, cultural land management, community-centred disaster risk reduction and bushfire data and reconstruction.
The summary report (Understanding the Black Summer bushfires through research: a summary of key findings from the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC), outlines the 22 projects carried out under the CRC ‘umbrella’ and the four themes. Topics range widely from community recovery, prescribed burn effectiveness, fuel moisture, cultural land management and risk modelling to case studies and reconstructions of particular fires.
The various reports as well as the summary can be found here.
IBG comment
- IBG advocates for a rapid expansion of bushfire research, so this collection is a welcome addition.
- The funds allocated to solving critical questions in bushfire management are very small compared to what is spent on bushfire mitigation, suppression and recovery.
- With a focus on operational improvement, IBG is particularly interested in the projects on aerial firefighting, bushfire predictions, weather and fire reconstructions/analysis. However some of these studies deliver less than expected, with either a narrow focus or discovering that data was not adequate to support more useful findings. This highlights both the lack of historical support for data and research, and the preliminary nature of much bushfire research. Much more work needs to be done if the impacts of future severe fires are to be reduced.
- In subsequent posts IBG will progressively review some of the more interesting reports from this BNHCRC collection.
Independent Bushfire Group 