@inbook {bnh-8346, title = {Connecting Weather and Hazard: A partnership of physical scientists in connected disciplines}, booktitle = {Towards the {\textquotedblleft}Perfect{\textquotedblright} Weather Warning: Bridging Disciplinary Gaps through Partnership and Communication}, year = {2022}, pages = {149}, publisher = {Springer Nature}, organization = {Springer Nature}, chapter = {6}, abstract = {

Achieving consistency in the prediction of the atmosphere and related environmental hazards requires careful design of forecasting systems. In this chapter, we identify the
benefits of seamless approaches to hazard prediction and the challenges of achieving them in a multi-institution situation. We see that different modelling structures are adopted in different disciplines and that these often relate to the user requirements for those hazards. We then explore the abilities of weather prediction to meet the requirements of these different disciplines. We find that differences in requirement and language can be major challenges to seamless data processing and look at some ways in which these can be resolved. We conclude with examples of partnerships in flood forecasting in the UK and wildfire forecasting in Australia.

}, keywords = {Cold, Coupled model, Evaluation, Fire, Forecaster, Heat, hydrology, Ocean Flood, Seamless, Winter}, issn = {978-3-030-98989-7}, doi = {doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98989-7_6}, url = {https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-98989-7_6$\#$Abs1}, author = {Brian Golding and Jenny Sun and MIchael Riemer and Nusrat Yussouf and Helen Titley and Joanne Robbins and Beth Ebert and Tom Pagano and Huw Lewis and Claire Dashwood and Mika Peace} } @article {bnh-7980, title = {Black Summer - how the NSW community responded to the 2019-20 bushfire season}, number = {651}, year = {2021}, month = {05/2021}, pages = {130}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

The 2019-20 bushfire season saw unprecedented, destructive bushfires across New South Wales (NSW). After an early start to the fire season in August 2019, fires spread south from the Queensland border to the Victorian border over the course of spring and summer. Tens of thousands of people were displaced by the fires, including residents, tourists and visitors to affected areas. Significant rainfall in early February 2020 helped contain the fires by February 13 and brought an end to the most deadly and destructive fire season in NSW history. Tragically, 26 people lost their lives in the fires, including four NSW RFS volunteers and three US aerial firefighters. Many more people were affected by smoke, including in regional areas and major population centres such as the north coast, Sydney, Canberra, Newcastle and Wollongong. By season{\textquoteright}s end, fires had burned a record 5.5 million hectares of NSW and destroyed 2,448 homes (NSW RFS 2020). Community and commercial buildings and infrastructure were also significantly impacted on. The fires adversely affected many industries, including agriculture, forestry and tourism.

The NSW RFS engaged the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre to conduct research into community preparedness, warnings and responses to the 2019-20 NSW bushfires. The NSW RFS identified eight key themes for investigation, including: (i) risk communication; (ii) effect of prolonged and repeated exposure to bushfire on planning, preparation and responses; (iii) effect of previous experience and exposure to bushfire on planning, preparation and responses; (iv) sheltering practices; (v) experiences of tourists and visitors; (vi) awareness and attitudes toward bushfire risk reduction; (vii) building standards; and (viii) community recovery and resilience.

This report presents findings from research into community attitudes and experiences of the 2019-20 bushfire season undertaken for the NSW RFS. The NSW RFS Statement of Work identified the following themes and questions for investigation:

}, keywords = {Bushfire, communication, communities, Community safety, education, Fire, Warnings}, isbn = {978-0-6482756-9-5}, issn = {651}, author = {J Whittaker and Katharine Haynes and Wilkinson, Carrie and Matalena Tofa and Tasmin Dilworth and Jessica Collins and Lillian Tait and Stephanie Samson} } @article {bnh-8124, title = {A characterisation of synoptic weather features often associated with extreme events in southeast Australia: Stage 1 {\textendash} common features of recent events}, number = {679}, year = {2021}, month = {07/2021}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {MELBOURNE}, abstract = {

Negatively tilted upper-tropospheric troughs are a synoptic weather pattern that have been associated with the development of thunderstorms and severe weather, including extreme fire weather and tornadoes. While various case studies and some preliminary climatological analysis have been conducted in the past, a thorough investigation of the development of these synoptic features during extreme weather events has not yet been done in Australia or elsewhere. This study aimed to identify how often negatively tilted troughs occur and how often they are associated with extreme storms and fire weather.

The objectives of the project were to:

The major components of the project were:

Review of previously documented cases

January 2003 Canberra fires

July 2014 Perth tornadoes

Climatology

While modern numerical weather prediction (NWP) systems are increasingly capable of resolving the surface weather parameters associated with severe weather events, there are known deficiencies. An example of this is the over-estimation of low winds and under-estimation of high winds common to numerous models. Better understanding of the role of features such as NTT in generating surface weather helps interpretation and refinement of the NWP output, particularly for users of weather data such as emergency services agencies.

Furthermore, as products from NWP such as sub-seasonal to seasonal outlooks become more refined, there is value in recognising the occurrence of potential impacts of NTT that may be resolved at the synoptic or sub-synoptic scale in such model configurations even if the potential severity of the weather parameters are note explicitly resolved. For example, if a sub-seasonal to seasonal model ensemble shows a high probability of a NTT occurrence in a particular region a certain number of weeks in advance, that is useful information for planning and preparedness for emergency services managers.

Thus, this sort of synoptic climatological study in combination with detailed analyses of particular events continues to be of great relevance to natural hazard prediction and management.

Future work

}, keywords = {exterme events, features, Fire, southeast Australia, synoptic, tornado, weather}, issn = {679}, author = {Love, P. and Paul Fox-Hughes and Remenyi, T. and Nick Earl and Dean Rollins and Gabi Mocatta and Rebecca Harris} } @article {bnh-8100, title = {Continental-scale prediction of live fuel moisture content using soil moisture information}, journal = {Agricultural and Forest Meteorology}, volume = {307}, year = {2021}, month = {06/2021}, abstract = {

Live fuel moisture content (LFMC) is a key factor that determines the flammability of vegetation in ecosystems. Soil moisture (SM) is one of the variables that is known to influence plant water use. The present study analyses the LFMC-SM relationship over Australia using gridded, remote sensing-based LFMC and land surface model-based SM products. A lag-correlation analysis conducted over 60 selected sites shows that the strength of the relationship between LFMC and SM varies from site to site and, in general, is moderately strong (median lag-correlation of ~0.5). However, the strength of the relationship changes with vegetation type and also with soil profile depth. At all the sites, SM is found to be a leading indicator of LFMC. The lag also varies with the location and is found to range from days to months. Based on the location-based correlation analysis, we identify the 0-35 cm SM profile (SM0-35cm) to be the best predictor of LFMC. We developed a simple model to predict daily LFMC, where it is hypothesised that daily variations in LFMC from its annual cycle can be predicted using daily deviations from the annual cycle in SM0-35cm. The annual cycles of LFMC and SM0-35cm are modelled using Fourier cosine series. The averaged (over 60 sites) correlation obtained for the validation period is 0.74 when a time-lag of 14 days is assumed at all locations. When the model is applied nationally at a 5 km grid, the normalised root mean squared error for the validation period is found to be less than 25\% in general. The results from the present study highlight a modelling strategy that can be used to address a critical gap in the forecast of spatially and temporally continuous LFMC at regional scales in advance for operational fire management applications.

}, keywords = {AFMS, Fire, JASMIN, JULES, live fuel moisture, Soil moisture}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2021.108503}, url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168192321001866}, author = {Vinod Kumar and Imtiaz Dharssi and Marta Yebra and Paul Fox-Hughes} } @article {bnh-7954, title = {Demographic effects of severe fire in montane shrublands on Tasmania{\textquoteright}s Central Plateau}, number = {658}, year = {2021}, month = {04/2021}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {MELBOURNE}, abstract = {

Australian montane sclerophyll shrubland vegetation is considered to be resilient to infrequent severe fire but this may not be the case in Tasmanian shrublands. Our research reports on the regeneration response of a Tasmanian non-coniferous woody montane shrubland following a severe fire. The 2019 Great Pine Tier fire in the Central Plateau Conservation Area was a severe crown fire that killed all above ground vegetation in the shrubland. Our field survey revealed that less than 1\% of the burnt plants were not top-killed by the fire, and only 5\% of the burnt plants were observed to be resprouting one year following the fire. Such a low resprouting rate means the resilience of the shrubland depends on seedling regeneration from aerial and soil seedbanks or colonisation from plants outside the fire ground. The low number of resprouters within the shrubland suggest that it may not be as resilient to fire as mainland Australian montane shrubland. As a consequence, our research highlights the fragility of the shrubland under a warming climate and potential increase in fire frequency.

}, keywords = {demographic, effects, Fire, montane, severe, shrublands, Tasmania}, issn = {658}, author = {Judy Foulkes and Steven Leonard and David Bowman} } @article {bnh-7996, title = {Fire spread across different fuel types: research and utilisation {\textendash} final project report}, number = {668}, year = {2021}, month = {05/2021}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

It is crucial for emergency and disaster management organisations to predict of the rate of spread and intensity of bushfires for operational planning, community warnings and the deployment of their resources. Currently, this is achieved by simulation using simplified operational models that have the useful attribute of providing results on time scales commensurate with those required by emergency managers. However, when Cruz \& Alexander [1] reviewed the performance of the operational fire models used by fire and emergency service analysts on seven vegetation types found in Australia, they found that on an average most of the fire models have an error of 20{\textendash}80\% in estimating the rate of fire spread. These differences in prediction are due to the assumptions and limitations of these models. Therefore, it is essential that these simplified operational tools be refined so that they can better predict fire behaviour. Additionally, a more physically based firebrand model needs to be included in operational models to predict firebrand distribution and subsequent spotting, which lead to an increased rate of fire spread (ROS). Currently, no such model exists. With an increased population in the rural{\textendash}urban interface (or wildland{\textendash}urban interface, WUI), it is also important to understand the vulnerability of houses from radiant heat and firebrand flux in order to minimise such vulnerability.

In this project, we tested two established reliable physics-based models: Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) and FIRESTAR3D to simulate bushfire scenarios in three broad areas:

(1)\  sub-canopy wind flow,

(2)\  firebrand transport, and

(3)\  propagation of grass and forest fires.

We have made significant inroads into providing usable outputs as well understanding various aspects of bushfire behaviour. The following are particular highlights:

This project was also established to create a capability and capacity in Australia to conduct research and understand physical-based wildfire modelling approaches. There are several international groups developing these models, and it is imperative that Australia can interact and work alongside these researchers to translate the findings to the Australian context.

Overall, we have achieved our goal of obtaining greater insight into bushfire physics and we are now utilising those insights to parameterise various phenomena for operational models.

This report explains these issues in more detail.

[1] Meaning WRF will vary for the geographical location and driving wind velocity and direction

}, keywords = {Fire, fuel, research, spread, types, utilisation}, issn = {668}, author = {Nazmul Khan and Amila Wickramasinghe and Mahmood Rashid and Khalid Moinuddin} } @article {bnh-8129, title = {Kangaroo Island Black Summer fire reconstruction}, number = {685}, year = {2021}, month = {07/2021}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

In the 2019-20 summer, wildfire affected an area of around 200,000 hectares on Kangaroo Island, South Australia, in what has become known as the Black Summer, with significant ongoing social, economic and environmental impacts.

The Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) onboard the geostationary satellite Himawari-8 provides infrared imagery at 2km spatial resolution at nadir in 10- minute intervals. This allows wildfires to be detected and monitored in quasi-real time using the Biogeographical Region and Individual Geostationary HHMMSS Threshold (BRIGHT) algorithm (Engel, Jones and Reinke, 2020), developed in partnership between the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) and the Bushfire and Natural Hazard CRC. This report outlines the methods used to verify hotspots detected by the BRIGHT algorithm and reconstruct the Black Summer fires using spatio-temporal clustering.

}, keywords = {black summer, Fire, fire impacts, kangaroo island, reconstructions, remote sensing, Satellite}, issn = {685}, author = {Simon Ramsey and Karin Reinke and Nur Trihantoro and Simon Jones and Chermelle Engel} } @conference {bnh-8275, title = {Long-range fire weather predictions developed and service established as new capability for Australia}, booktitle = {AFAC21}, year = {2021}, month = {10/2021}, publisher = {AFAC}, organization = {AFAC}, address = {Online}, abstract = {

Factors providing long-range predictability for this system include the pre-existing moisture content of vegetation (using agricultural drought measures), large-scale modes of variability (e.g., El Nino), sudden stratospheric warmings (e.g., polar vortex variations contributed to the severity of the 2019/20 summer) and long-term climate change.

The guidance products were designed with a user-driven approach, based on strong end-user engagement throughout the project. These long-range predictions are part of broader efforts to deliver seamless guidance over a wide range of time scales. Fire weather predictions and data are now available in a consistent form for long-range predictions out to several months ahead, historical records back to 1950 and future climate projections throughout this century. A seamless service across different time scales is intended to enhance planning capabilities from short to long time-scales, leading to enhanced resilience and disaster risk reduction for natural hazards. These fire weather outlooks have been described as a step change in improved capability, developed through user engagement, including for supporting risk reduction in prescribed burning and operational planning requirements.

}, keywords = {Capability, Fire, predictions, weather}, url = {https://www.afac.com.au/events/proceedings/06-10-21/article/long-range-fire-weather-predictions-developed-and-service-established-as-new-capability-for-australia}, author = {Dowdy, Andrew J} } @article {bnh-8190, title = {Soil and fuel moisture precursors of fire activity during the 2019-20 fire season, in comparison to previous seasons - Black Summer final report}, number = {686}, year = {2021}, month = {08/2021}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {MELBOURNE}, abstract = {

Australia experienced unprecedented bushfires during the 2019-20 fire season. Millions of hectares were burned, almost 3,000 homes were destroyed, there were 26 fatalities, and communities were exposed to smoke for extended periods.\  Low soil and vegetation moisture content due to antecedent dry conditions were a key driver of fire activity.

This report extends the work in two Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC projects to examine the 2019-20 fire season:

The national spatial datasets produced by these projects are consistent and regularly updated, separately examining soil and vegetation moisture variability, as both quantities influence fuel availability and therefore fire behaviour.

This project explores the overlaps between these data sets, as well as comparing other available data (including the Australian Landscape Water Balance) to identify atmospheric, soil and fuel moisture characteristics that contributed to fire risk during Black Summer.

Spatially coherent historical and regularly updated soil and fuel moisture datasets are critically important to fire managers so that an accurate, quantifiable assessment of potential fire activity in the landscape can be made, and this can be benchmarked against historical conditions. This information is crucial to making accurate assessments of risk and identifying situations that fall outside of historical records. One of the valuable aspects of JASMIN is that it can also be used in a predictive way and is therefore useful in anticipating soil moisture and therefore fire risk into the future in a quantitative manner on weather (short-term) and seasonal timescales. Research work in the {\textquoteright}Land Dryness{\textquoteright} project also demonstrated the capacity of soil moisture to predict future vegetation moisture content and thus more directly anticipate fire potential.

This project examines the interaction of atmospheric parameters with soil and fuel moisture content over scales of days, weeks to months, and years. Such an integration has not been undertaken previously.\ Consideration of each of these timeframes is important when making accurate assessments of fire risk. The interaction between them is also critical, as a compounding of the individual processes at the different scales occurs and this was seen in the cumulative effects of antecedent dry years, low winter rainfall and heatwaves during the Black Summer.\ 

This project examined six fire events that were nominated for investigation by the relevant jurisdictions. The fires are:

The scope of the project included examining the following:

Key findings of the project include:\ 

The findings confirm impressions of fire practitioners regarding the extremity of conditions antecedent to the 2019-20 fire season. Importantly, the datasets used in the project present a measurable and spatially coherent approach to estimating fire risk from observed and modelled soil and fuel moisture. Operational application of the datasets and approaches used here will assist in producing accurate soil and vegetation moisture forecasts for prediction of fire risk in the future.

Some immediate benefits for fire managers of this work include:

Each of the meteorological and moisture variables investigated in this study contributed useful information to an understanding of increased fire risk at each site during the 2019-20 Australian summer. Fuel moisture content provided perhaps the most immediate indicator of present fire risk. Soil moisture content permitted an assessment of future changes in fuel moisture content. Both of these integrated changes in meteorological parameters. As such, the meteorological parameters (temperature, precipitation, atmospheric moisture represented by vapour pressure) contributed an understanding of why soil and fuel moisture changed in the ways that they did and offered information on how they would change in the future. Monitoring these quantities can help fire and land managers understand how and why fire risk changes across a landscape.\ 

Future work

This project was conducted over a short time period with one objective being to establish a pathway for future research and operational application.

The following opportunities for future research with likely operational benefits have been identified:

In summary, better understanding and spatial mapping of the influence of atmospheric, soil and fuel moisture will assist fire and land managers predict fire risk, which is critical for strategic and tactical planning. Many of the recommendations could be inclusions to the Australian Fire Danger Rating System (AFDRS), and therefore of immediate benefit to fire and land managers following the introduction of the AFDRS to operational use over the next two fire seasons.

}, keywords = {black summer, Fire, fire activity, fuel, moisture, precursors, soil}, issn = {686}, author = {Paul Fox-Hughes and Marta Yebra and Shukhrat Shokirov and Vinod Kumar and Dowdy, Andrew J and Pandora Hope and Mika Peace and Sugata Narsey and Francois Delage and Huqiang Zhang} } @article {bnh-6737, title = {Deconstructing factors contributing to the 2018 fire weather in Queensland, Australia}, volume = {101}, year = {2020}, month = {02/2020}, pages = {S15-S21}, edition = {1}, abstract = {

Factors including the circulation pattern and antecedent conditions contributed to 2018 northeast Australian fires. High background temperatures also played a role for which model evidence suggests an anthropogenic influence.

}, keywords = {Fire, Fire weather, Queensland}, doi = {10.1175/BAMS-D-19-0144.1}, url = {https://www.ametsoc.org/ams/index.cfm/publications/bulletin-of-the-american-meteorological-society-bams/explaining-extreme-events-from-a-climate-perspective/}, author = {Sophie Lewis and Stephanie Blake and Blair Trewin and Mitchell Black and Dowdy, Andrew J and Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick and Andrew King and Jason J. Sharples} } @article {bnh-7785, title = {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}, journal = {Atmosphere}, volume = {11}, year = {2020}, month = {12/2020}, chapter = {1380}, abstract = {

Coupled fire-atmosphere models are simulators that integrate a fire component and an atmospheric component, with the objective of capturing interactions between the fire and atmosphere. As a fire releases energy in the combustion process, the surrounding atmosphere adjusts in response to the energy fluxes; coupled fire-atmosphere (CFA) models aim to resolve the processes through which these adjustments occur. Several CFA models have been developed internationally, mostly by meteorological institutions and primarily for use as a research tool. Research studies have provided valuable insights into some of the atmospheric processes surrounding a fire. The potential to run CFA models in real time is currently limited due to the intensive computational requirements. In addition, there is a need for systematic verification to establish their accuracy and the appropriate circumstances for their use. The Bureau of Meteorology (the Bureau) is responsible for providing relevant and accurate meteorological information to Australian fire agencies to inform decisions for the protection of life and property and to support hazard management activities. The inclusion of temporally and spatially detailed meteorological fields that adjust in response to the energy released by a fire is seen as a component in developing fire prediction systems that capture some of the most impactful fire and weather behavior. The Bureau{\textquoteright}s ten-year research and development plan includes a commitment to developing CFA models, with the objective of providing enhanced services to Australian fire agencies. This paper discusses the operational use of fire predictions and simulators, learnings from CFA models and potential future directions for the Bureau in using CFA models to support fire prediction activities.

}, keywords = {coupled fire-atmosphere, Fire, meteorology, modeling}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos11121380}, url = {https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/11/12/1380}, author = {Mika Peace and Joseph Charney and John Bally} } @article {bnh-6736, title = {Modeling Vorticity-Driven Wildfire Behavior Using Near-Field Techniques}, journal = {Frontiers in Mechanical Engineering}, year = {2020}, month = {01/2020}, abstract = {

Dynamic modes of fire propagation present a significant challenge for operational fire spread simulation. Current two-dimensional operational fire simulation platforms are not generally able to account for the complex interactions that drive such behaviors, and while fully coupled fire-atmosphere models are able to account for dynamic effects to an extent, their computational demands are prohibitive in an operational context. In this paper we consider techniques for extending two-dimensional fire spread simulators so that they are able to simulate certain dynamic fire behaviors. In particular, we consider modeling vorticity-driven lateral spread (VLS), which is characterized by rapid lateral fire propagation across steep, leeward slopes. Specifically, we consider modeling the influence of the fire on the local surface airflow via a {\textquotedblleft}pyrogenic potential{\textquotedblright} model, which allows for vertical vorticity effects (in a near-field sense) using the Helmholtz decomposition. The ability of the resulting model to emulate fire propagation associated with VLS is demonstrated using a number of examples.

}, keywords = {Fire, fire-atmosphere, modelling, vorticity-driven lateral spread}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.3389/fmech.2019.00069}, url = {https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmech.2019.00069/full}, author = {Jason J. Sharples and James Hilton} } @mastersthesis {bnh-6632, title = {Physics-based simulation of short-range spotting in wildfires}, year = {2020}, month = {01/2020}, school = {Victoria University}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

Firebrands play a vital role in the propagation of fire fronts and starting new fires called spotfires ahead of fire fronts during wildfire progression. Firebrands are a harbinger of damage to infrastructure; their effects cause a particularly important threat to people living within the wildland-urban-interface, hampers the suppression of the wildfire or even blocking the evacuation routes for communities and emergency services. Short-range firebrands (\<750m) which travel along with the wind with little or no lofting are particularly crucial in increasing the fire front propagation and damaging structures situated closed to wildland-urban interface. In the Daylesford fire of 1962, massive short-range spotting (the process of spot fire ignition and merging of spots caused by firebrands) occurred in eucalyptus forest and increased the rate of fire spread by roughly three times more than the computed using empiricial correlation used by operational fire model. Despite the massive importance of short-range firebrands, little research has been conducted because of the safety risks and challenges of fire to emergency service personnel and to the remote equipment like collection boxes, IR cameras, UAVs, which could be used by researchers to quantify and measure fire properties. An operational model to represent the transport of short-range firebrand and their likelihood to ignite the surface fuel like forest litter could be developed from a numerical model. This study first attempts to validate a numerical model of firebrand transport with a set of benchmark experiments. The validation of numerical model is carried out using idealised regular shaped firebrand. Fire Dynamic Simulator (FDS) is an open-source Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) based fire model which is used in this study. The validation of the numerical model is split into two parts focusing on validation of (1) transport, and (2) ignition potential of firebrands. Transport of short range firebrands are modelled in FDS using a lagrangian particle sub-model. The model was validated using two firebrand generators (a plastic pipe-based prototype and stainless steel based main firebrand generator) constructed at our facility as a part of this study. The firebrand generator is equipment which generates a repeatable firebrand shower in a confined space. There are few firebrand dragons built around the world. However, our firebrand generators produce a uniform flow field which simplifies the transport of short-range firebrand to be validated. The set of experiments conducted is used to validate the Lagrangian particle model available in FDS used in the transport of short-range firebrands. The validation is carried out on cubiform, cylindrical, and square disc-shaped firebrands. As the default drag model in FDS was not suitable for shapes of firebrands, the drag model is improved to account for a generic shape of firebrand particle. The results show a reasonable agreement with the experiments for all three shapes over a range of particle Reynolds number. A set of laboratory scale equipment is used to study the ignition likelihood from a short-range firebrand in the numerical model. The boundary fuel vegetation model of FDS is validated. The pyrolysis of vegetation is first tested using thermogravimetric analyser and then with cone calorimeter to estimate mass loss rate, heat-release rate, and time to sustained flaming ignition of three forest litter (pine, eucalyptus, and hay) fuels. Further, a set of thermo-physical properties (thermal conductivity, heat capacity, the heat of pyrolysis, the heat of combustion) of the material tested are also measured using in-house equipment required in the above numerical model. The result showed that the simple linear pyrolysis model is good enough for different forest litter tested with thermogravimetric analyser and cone calorimeter. Finally, a parametric study of short-range firebrand transport inside an open woodland forest canopy is carried out using the validated Lagrangian particle sub-model. The work focuses on understanding how firebrand distribution varies with a set of variable firebrand characteristics in a wildfire and set a stepping stone for the future study. The results are found to be qualitatively similar to the literature.

}, keywords = {Fire, Firebrands, fluid dynamics, simulation, spotting, transport, Wildfire}, url = {http://vuir.vu.edu.au/40025/}, author = {Rahul Wadhwani} } @article {bnh-5423, title = {Active fires: Early fire detection and mapping using HIMAWARI-8 Annual Report 2017-2018}, number = {458}, year = {2019}, month = {03/2019}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

This project is a critical part of the BNH CRC{\textquoteright}s value to Geoscience Australia and the broader Australian government. The Sentinel Hotspots application is used by all levels of government, private sector, researchers and the public {\textendash} this system would not be trusted by those parties without sound validation. This project will continue to assist the Australian government in developing and validating the capability of the Himawari-8 data source to Sentinel Hotspots program. Further, the project will assist in the ongoing improvement of vital bushfire information acquired through state-of-the-art remote sensing technology as needed by fire and emergency management now and in the future.

}, keywords = {Fire, HIMAWARI-8, mapping}, author = {Simon Jones and Karin Reinke and Chermelle Engel} } @article {bnh-5481, title = {Assessing the ability of image based point clouds captured from a UAV to measure the terrain in the presence of canopy cover}, journal = {forests}, volume = {10}, year = {2019}, month = {04/2019}, abstract = {

Point clouds captured from Unmanned Aerial Systems are increasingly relied upon to provide information describing the structure of forests. The quality of the information derived from these point clouds is dependent on a range of variables, including the type and structure of the forest, weather conditions and flying parameters. A key requirement to achieve accurate estimates of height based metrics describing forest structure is a source of ground information. This study explores the availability and reliability of ground surface points available within point clouds captured in six forests of different structure (canopy cover and height), using three image capture and processing strategies, consisting of nadir, oblique and composite nadir/oblique image networks. The ground information was extracted through manual segmentation of the point clouds as well as through the use of two commonly used ground filters, LAStools lasground and the Cloth Simulation Filter. The outcomes of these strategies were assessed against ground control captured with a Total Station. Results indicate that a small increase in the number of ground points captured (between 0 and 5\% of a 10 m radius plot) can be achieved through the use of a composite image network. In the case of manually identified ground points, this reduced the root mean square error (RMSE) error of the terrain model by between 1 and 11 cm, with greater reductions seen in plots with high canopy cover. The ground filters trialled were not able to exploit the extra information in the point clouds and inconsistent results in terrain RMSE were obtained across the various plots and imaging network configurations. The use of a composite network also provided greater penetration into the canopy, which is likely to improve the representation of mid-canopy elements.

}, keywords = {drones, Fire, forest measurement, image based point clouds, RPAS, structure from motion, UAS}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.3390/f10030284}, url = {https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/10/3/284}, author = {Luke Wallace and Chris Bellman and Bryan Hally and Jaime Hernandez and Simon Jones and Samuel Hillman} } @mastersthesis {bnh-6825, title = {Development of an interface using penalisation method for improving computational performance of bushfire simulation tools}, volume = {Master of Engineering}, year = {2019}, month = {05/2019}, pages = {350}, school = {Victoria University}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

Wind is the dominant environmental factor affecting wildland fire intensity and spread. Previously, fire analysts and managers have relied on local measurements and site-specific forecasts to determine how winds influence fire. The advancements in computer hardware, increased availability of electronic topographical and experimental data, and advances in numerical methods for computing winds, have led to the development of new tools capable of simulating wind flow. Several numerical models have been developed for fire prediction and forecasting. Modelling wind in physics-based models like Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) has been shown to produce promising results, but at an inordinate cost. Because of the high computational expense, physics-based models are not suitable for operational use. Little research has been conducted to improve the computational speed of these models. The current study intends to decrease the computational cost of physics-based fire simulations and improve physics-based models by including more complicated driving winds.\ 

Physics-based wildfire simulations are driven by inlet boundary conditions which model the atmospheric boundary layer. Various inlet conditions, such as the 1/7-powerlaw or the log law models with artificial turbulence (e.g. the synthetic eddy method, [SEM]) can be used as an inlet to generate a statistically steady wind field for a fire simulation. The power-law inlet is the default inlet condition used in FDS where the wind develops turbulence as it sweeps through the domain, and is often used with wall-of-wind\ type methods. The log-law inlet generates a log wind profile similar to Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ABL). Development of techniques for imposing inlet conditions and initial conditions for flow simulations have been topics of interest for the past few decades. CUrrent inlet and initial conditions requires time in a scale order of 100s of CPU hours, for generating an appropriate condition to start a fire simulation, hence resulting in increased computational expense. A novel nesting method has been implemented, which involves two regions: penalisation and blending, named as the PenaBlending method. The initial conditions of the fire simulations in FDS are set to the initial condition prescribed by an external model or simulation. This is achieved by a one-way coupling method. External wind data, for which u,v,w can vary in space and time, can be obtained. The precursor data can be generated either from any reduced wind model such as Windninha, which gives terrain\ modified wind data, or by using analytical methods such as generating logarithmic windfield using Matlab.\ These external data can be introduced into the FDS domain\ through a penalization region at the inlet/outlet. A blending region has also been\ implemented near the specified inlet/outlet which allows a smooth mixing of a precursor\ wind field to that in the simulation domain. This new inlet condition allows complicated\ terrain modified temporally and spatially varying wind fields, obtained from precursor\ simulations or any other models, to be implemented relatively easily in the FDS domain. To test the implementation of this method, a flat terrain is considered in the current study.\ However, this method could also be used for complicated terrain structures, as a part of\ future studies. The PenaBlending method provides appropriate flow conditions with reduced\ computational effort (up to  80\%), to start a fire simulation, and, hence, reduces\ the computational expense of physics-based models.

The results obtained using the PenaBlending method have been compared with that obtained using the existing inlet conditions of FDS, like the SEM method, wall-of-wind method and mean-forcing methods, using the 1/7 power-law or log-law inlets. To test these three methods, a set of fire simulations have been conducted and tested against the PenaBlending method. It was found that the results of the PenaBlending methods agree well with that of existing methods, with small variations for both the wind and fire cases.\ 

FDS 6.6.0 (the version used in this study) requires a very fine grid to obtain grid convergence. This is not feasible in the case of a large-scale simulation because of very high computation cost. FDS 6.2.0, with a reaction-rate-limiter combustion model, needs less fine grids to obtain grid convergence. Therefore, this combustion model is re-introduced into FDS 6.6.0, providing an option\ \ of choosing between two different combustion models,\ as a part of this study. For all the simulations, the reaction-rate-limiter combustion\ model has been used. The simulations are carried out in a neutral-atmospheric stability\ condition. However, the PenaBlending method can apply any general driving wind, and\ the effect of atmospheric stability, could be included, as part of future studies. The PenaBlending\ method could be extended in conjunction with Monin-Obukhov Similarity\ Theory (introduced in FDS 6.6.0) to model fire in various atmospheric stability conditions.

}, keywords = {computational fluid dynamics, Fire, fire dynamics simulator, Physics-based modelling, Wildfire, wind}, url = {http://vuir.vu.edu.au/40023/}, author = {Sesa Singha Roy} } @article {bnh-5488, title = {Fire in the south: a cross-continental exchange}, number = {475}, year = {2019}, month = {04/2019}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

This report documents a trip undertaken across southern Western Australia (WA) to exchange knowledge from south eastern Australia about cultural burning with traditional owners and fire authorities in Norseman, Esperance, Nowanup, Albany, Bunbury and Perth. The journey took place in the anticipatory shadow of catastrophic wildfires that can destroy, and have destroyed, much of value in this part of the world.

The key learnings are summarised under the headings: Fire and life, At-risk values, Healing, Cultural burning as a contemporary practice, Volunteer training and fire skills, Relations and repair, and, East-West engagement across southern Australia. We also summarise the presentations by Dean Freeman about the ACT government cultural burning program. Together, these summaries form the substantive content of the report. They are supplemented by anecdotal accounts of each meeting, as well as background information on native title and other key terminology and concepts.

Fundamentally, the Aboriginal people we met with talked about the importance of understanding fire differently, to reposition it as not just something to fear, but as central to the regeneration of life. At the same time, all were concerned about the growth in catastrophic wildfires, and this intensified the focus on anticipatory land management practices.

Within this broader framing, the knowledge exchanged on this trip reflected that:

As a consequence of significant societal change to recognise and celebrate First Nations peoples in Australia, British derived systems of governance are required to work with Indigenous peoples{\textquoteright} political entities, including partnering on fire management issues. Concomitantly, the public sector and political leadership needs to think closely about what is meant by {\textquoteleft}the public good{\textquoteright} in their policies and programs {\textendash} that is, who is the public and what do they consider is good? Whilst northern Australia is an emblematic focus of activity by and for Indigenous Australia, the majority of Australia{\textquoteright}s Indigenous people live in southern Australia, and with the recognition of native title they are now the largest land holders in southern Australia. The ACT government{\textquoteright}s support of cultural burning is one example of how fire management is being refashioned with neither land rights nor native title, but motivated individuals doing the work to make it possible, because it is the right thing to do.

Significantly, fundamental shifts in the nature of land holding in Australia are bringing the public sector into greater exposure with the connected thinking and governing systems that arise out of Indigenous peoples{\textquoteright} relationships with Country. However, throughout Australia there is much more healing that needs to be done for such intercultural engagement to progress and be more meaningful for Indigenous people, including in material terms. The key players are in a good position to invest in the good will and work that is already present and take this forward.

}, keywords = {culture, Fire, hazards, indigenous communities}, issn = {475}, author = {Jessica Weir and Dean Freeman} } @article {bnh-5437, title = {Historical background and current developments for mapping burned area from satellite Earth observation}, journal = {Remote Sensing of Environment}, volume = {225}, year = {2019}, month = {05/2019}, pages = {45-64}, abstract = {

Fire has a diverse range of impacts on Earth{\textquoteright}s physical and social systems. Accurate and up to date information on areas affected by fire is critical to better understand drivers of fire activity, as well as its relevance for\ biogeochemical cycles, climate, air quality, and to aid fire management. Mapping burned areas was traditionally done from field sketches. With the launch of the first Earth\ observation satellites, remote sensing quickly became a more practical alternative to detect burned areas, as they provide timely regional and global coverage of fire occurrence. This review paper explores the physical basis to detect burned area from satellite observations, describes the historical trends of using\ satellite sensors\ to monitor burned areas, summarizes the most recent approaches to map burned areas and evaluates the existing burned area products (both at global and regional scales). Finally, it identifies potential future opportunities to further improve burned area detection from Earth observation satellites.

}, keywords = {Burned area, Climate change, Fire, fire impacts, Lidar, Radar}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2019.02.013}, url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0034425719300689}, author = {Emilio Chuvieco and Florent Mouillot and Guido van der Werf and Jes{\'u}s San Miguel and Mihai Tanasse and Nikos Koutsias and Mariano Garcia and Marta Yebra and Marc Padilla and Ioannis Gitas and Angelika Heil and Todd Hawbaker and Louis Giglio} } @mastersthesis {bnh-6164, title = {Investigation of spotting and intrinsic fire dynamics using a coupled atmosphere-fire modelling framework}, volume = {Doctor of Philosophy}, year = {2019}, month = {10/2019}, school = {University of New South Wales}, type = {Doctorate}, address = {Sydney}, abstract = {

Large plume-driven wild res are among the most destructive and unpredictable of all natural hazards. A prerequisite for the development of the deep convection characteristic of these res is the existence of a large area of active aming, also known as deep aming. There are a number of processes associated with the development of deep aming; many involve some form of dynamic re behaviour, in which dramatic changes in re behaviour can occur with little or no change in ambient conditions. Another important driver of deep aming is intense spotting and spot- re coalescence, which itself involves dynamic re behaviour. It is difficult to model dynamic re behaviour in a computationally efficient way; it cannot be modelled with existing operational re-spread models. This thesis is concerned with the modelling of dynamic re behaviour, and the modelling of ember transport in turbulent plumes. A coupled atmosphere framework is used to model junction res (the merging of two separate relines at an acute angle), and the fundamental processes causing the asociated dynamic behaviour are identi ed. The idea that reline curvature can act as a proxy for some of the processes underlying dynamic re behaviour is critically examined, and rejected. A recently-developed simple coupled model, the pyrogenic-potential model, is discussed. It is found to produce results comparable with that of a coupled atmosphere\ model in simple test cases involving the ignition of res along circular arcs. The\ pyrogenic-potential model can capture some forms of dynamic behaviour, and is\ efficient enough to be used operationally.\ To study ember transport in turbulent plumes, a large eddy model is used to simulate\ the plume from a static heat source, and the resulting wind eld is used to\ model the transport of embers under various assumptions. It is shown that the\ terminal-velocity assumption, in which embers are assumed to always move at their\ terminal velocity with respect to the wind eld, leads to an overestimate of emberlanding\ densities at medium to long ranges. This has important implications for\ the stochastic modelling of spot- re development.

}, keywords = {bushfire dynamics, bushfires, Fire, fire modelling, framework, spotting}, author = {Thomas, C. M.} } @article {bnh-5493, title = {Managing animals in disasters (MAiD) - improving preparedness, response and resilience through individual and organisational collaboration: Final Report 2017}, number = {476}, year = {2019}, month = {04/2019}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

The Managing Animals in Disasters (MAiD) project was a three-year research project focusing on the challenges for end users, stakeholders, and community members in preparing for, planning for, and responding to the needs of animals in emergencies. The aim of the project was to identify and build best practice approaches to animal emergency management (AEM) to enable engagement with animal owners and other stakeholders in disasters and emergencies.

}, keywords = {animals, Disaster management, Fire, Natural hazards}, author = {Mel Taylor} } @article {bnh-5685, title = {Multi-scaled calibration of high-resolution burnt area and fire severity mapping - workshop report}, number = {483}, year = {2019}, month = {07/2019}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

Many remote Indigenous communities in the tropical savannas of northern Australia reply upon {\textquotedblleft}Savanna Burning{\textquotedblright} methods, as payment for ecosystem services, providing employment and supporting their livelihoods. The methods rely upon accurate science to calculate greenhouse gas emissions. The current methods use fire seasonality to discriminate emissions estimates, whereas fire severity, if mapped with adequate accuracy, will provide a greenhouse gas emissions method more appropriate to customary burning, by advantaging low severity fires, that has the added advantage of being of overall benefit to biodiversity.
In November 2018, we brought an international group of remote sensing scientists together to develop a collaborative program to increase the spatial resolution of current burnt area mapping programs and incorporate fire severity within them. This report firstly outlines the requirements for the products and summarises the findings of the workshop.

}, keywords = {Fire, Fire danger rating, fire severity mapping, multi-scale, workshop}, issn = {483}, author = {Andrew C. Edwards} } @conference {bnh-6396, title = {A new decision support tool for prescribed burning risk assessment}, booktitle = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC Research Day AFAC19}, year = {2019}, month = {12/2019}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

In most Australian jurisdictions, the use of prescribed fire is promoted on the basis of its efficacy in mitigation of risk. Despite this, formal attempts to evaluate effects on risk to people, property and environmental values across different jurisdictions are generally lacking. In particular, there is no basis for assessing the generality of attempts to predict risk in response to any particular strategy for use of prescribed fire (e.g. the 5per cent target recommended by the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission). General principles therefore need to be developed about how to apply a risk-based approach across widely varying environments, human communities and combinations of key management values.

In this Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre project, researchers from the University of Wollongong, Western Sydney University and the University of Melbourne have come together with end users across southern Australia to design a project to systematically investigate how risk to any particular management value will respond to variations in the spatial location and rates of treatment. Project outputs are currently being moulded for utilisation by end users in a dedicated tool, the Prescribed Fire Atlas, which will guide the implementation of {\textquoteleft}tailor-made{\textquoteright} prescribed burning strategies to suit the biophysical, climatic and human context of all bioregions across southern Australia.

}, keywords = {decision support, Fire, perscibed burning, risk management}, url = {https://knowledge.aidr.org.au/resources/australian-journal-of-emergency-management-monograph-series/}, author = {Hamish Clarke and Brett Cirulis and Ross Bradstock and Matthias M. Boer and Trent Penman and Owen Price} } @article {bnh-6395, title = {The potential role of the commonwealth in responding to catastrophic disasters}, number = {530}, year = {2019}, month = {05/2019}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

he research question posed, and considered in this paper, is {\textquoteleft}in the absence of legislation, what is the role in, and more importantly what power might the Commonwealth have, when responding and recovering from a catastrophic disaster? Currently the Commonwealth has no overarching or specific counter-disaster legislation.\  This paper argues that even in the absence of legislation there is Commonwealth power to respond to emergencies within the areas of Commonwealth responsibility.\  Further there is an inherent power to deal with catastrophic disasters vested in the Crown as part of the prerogative power of the Crown and now incorporated into the Executive Power of the Commonwealth.\  Exactly what constitutes a {\textquoteleft}catastrophic disaster{\textquoteright} would be open to debate and, in the absence of legislation, may be the subject of judicial challenge. It is argued that a disaster where a state government is overwhelmed so that the state itself is at risk of collapse and there is no effective state government would be a national catastrophic disaster that would justify Commonwealth intervention in the affairs of the state in order to restore effective state government.\  What disaster, short of the collapse of state government, would be sufficient for direct Commonwealth action cannot be conclusively defined.\  \ 
In the absence of legislation and a truly catastrophic event, the Commonwealth{\textquoteright}s authority to exercise national leadership and coordinate Commonwealth, state and private assets will depend on good will and cooperation.\  The extent of the Commonwealth{\textquoteright}s executive power cannot be identified until the circumstances of the particular disaster have been identified.
Failing to define, in legislation, the role and power of the Commonwealth will leave the Commonwealth to {\textquoteleft}cope ugly{\textquoteright} with any particular catastrophe.\  That may be acceptable as it will leave the Commonwealth with adaptive flexibility. It has however been a consistent recommendation of commentators that the Commonwealth should legislate to ensure that the Commonwealth is able to cope with an inevitable catastrophe.\  \ 
The absence of legislation makes it impossible to define, except in the most generic terms, what the Commonwealth{\textquoteright}s powers are.

}, keywords = {Cascading Events, Collapse, Disaster management, Emergency management, Fire, hazards}, issn = {530}, author = {Michael Eburn and Cameron Moore and Andrew Gissing} } @article {bnh-5807, title = {Preventable residential fire fatalities in Australia July 2003 to June 2017}, number = {506}, year = {2019}, month = {08/2019}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

Introduction

On average, more than one fire-related death occurs in a residential context every week in Australia. That equates to approximately the same number of deaths as occurred during the Black Saturday bushfires (173) every three years. These deaths are overwhelmingly preventable. Deaths from residential fires have significant social, economic and emotional impacts on individuals, families, communities and also on the firefighters and other emergency service workers who attend these tragic incidents. The last published national study into residential fire fatalities in Australia was released in 2005 (Australasian Fire Authorities Council (AFAC), 2005). The current study follows on from that report but looks in greater depth at who is most at risk. It provides fire services and other stakeholders with an analysis of preventable residential fire fatalities to inform evidence-based policy and practice to reduce the number of future deaths.

Aims

The aims of this study were to:

Methods

The methodology of this study is based primarily on the collection and analysis of coronial records from the National Coronial Information System (NCIS) database, supported by the analysis of publicly available Coronial reports. The NCIS database is an online facility storing coronial cases from all jurisdictions in Australia from 2000 onwards. To access the NCIS database ethics approvals were obtained from the Human Research Ethics Committees of Macquarie University and the Victorian Department of Justice and Regulation, from the Coroners Court of Victoria Research Committee and from the Western Australian Coronial Ethics Committee.\ 

Australian records from 1 July 2003 to 30 June 2017 were accessed in the NCIS by a\ variety of searches. After refinement of the applicable dataset, relevant structured\ and non-structured data from the NCIS (comprising the summary page, police,\ autopsy and toxicology reports and coroner{\textquoteright}s findings) were coded for 41 fields and\ entered into a specially constructed Microsoft (MS) Access database {\textendash} the\ Preventable Residential Fire Fatalities Database. Once complete, the data were\ exported to MS Excel tables and statistically analysed.\ \ 

Results/Discussion

Mortaility statistics

This study found that at least 900 people have died in preventable residential fires in\ Australia from July 2003 to June 2017, averaging approximately 64 deaths per year\ or more than one preventable residential fire death every week. This is a national\ death rate of approximately 0.29 per 100,000 population. The majority of deaths\ occur in single fatality incidents. Between 2003 and 2017 there was no clear\ declining trend in fire fatalities.

The results from this study highlight that the conceptualisation of fire fatality risk is\ complex. The presence of a single risk factor on its own is unlikely to significantly\ increase a person{\textquoteright}s risk of dying in a residential fire. It is the co-occurrence of a\ range of factors surrounding the person, their behaviours, their residential\ environment and other external factors that is likely to impact their overall level of
risk of having a fire that results in their death.

Fire services, individuals and other stakeholders can and should do more to reduce the rate of residential fire fatalities further, with an aim of reducing preventable residential fire deaths towards zero. Interventions to reduce the risk of residential fire for those most at risk of dying need to encompass both technological and human-centred approaches.

The residence and location

Free-standing houses/ villas were the housing type where the majority of fatal fires occurred (67.1\%). However, stand-alone houses comprise 78.4\% of housing stock in Australia, so other housing types may be over-represented in the fatality data. Similarly, owner occupiers were the most commonly identified property tenure (53\%), but owner occupiers account for approximately 67\% of all property tenures in
Australia (ABS, 2017). This indicates that other tenure types, such as private and public rentals, may be over-represented in fire fatalities.\ 

Geographically, most fatal residential fires occurred in major cities, but with regard to the death rate per 100,000 population, there was over-representation of deaths in regional and remote areas. The analysis of the fatality data in relation to areas of relative socio-economic advantage and disadvantage (IRSAD) (refer to pp.31-32 and Appendix 3) shows that most fatalities occurred in locations where there is relatively greater socio-economic disadvantage.\ Fatal preventable residential fires start most commonly in the living room/ lounge or\ bedroom. They are not necessarily large or severe fires, with approximately half of\ fatal fires burning one room or less of the structure.

Seasonality

The most common characteristics of residential fires that are fatal include that they\ occur mostly during the Australian winter months. They occur most commonly\ between hours of 8pm-8am and particularly from midnight-4am.

Smoke alarms

Smoke alarms are the most important residential fire safety device. They are required\ by law in residential properties in all Australian jurisdictions. For this study, data on\ smoke alarms was collected from the narrative parts of the NCIS database. In a\ large majority of cases (65.9\%), this information was not known. The extent that the\ presence of a smoke alarm was noted is low considering their importance, and
considering that the absence of a smoke alarm may have had an impact on the\ fatality outcome (e.g., by providing an earlier warning to the fire victim.)

The people

Single variable analysis from the current research found that those most at risk of\ dying in a preventable residential fire included:

By age cohort, people aged >=65 are the group most at risk of dying in a residential fire. In the >=65 cohort, the fatality rate increases with age; older age groups are more at risk. The data indicates that the other factors that increase risk in older people include smoking, having a disability, the presence in their blood of alcohol and/ or medications, living alone and requiring support to live at home. Where these
factors are present in combination, an older person{\textquoteright}s risk may increase significantly.\ 

The presence of a working smoke alarm may not provide early enough warning to enable older people to escape from a fire. This is an area that needs more research, but it indicates that there may be life-saving benefits if fire services and other stakeholders focus on increasing the uptake of specialist smoke alarms appropriate to the needs of older people.

The future fire fatality risk for older people is likely to be on an increasing trajectory due to a range of demographic and policy factors. These include an ageing population and this growing population of older people\ {\textquotedblleft}ageing in place{\textquotedblright} within their own home for longer.

Children aged 0-4 had the largest number of deaths of any 5 year age range. The cause of fire was more often lighters or matches (n=31), which may indicate that a significant number of fires were lit by children during fire-play. The link to social and financial disadvantage was particularly significant in this cohort, with almost half (48.6\%, n=34) of deaths in the 0-4 age bracket occurring in locations in the top 10\% of greatest socio-economic disadvantage, and 87.2\% of fatalities occurred in the top 40\% of locations of greatest disadvantage.

Fire safety interventions for this cohort need to be focused on increasing the basic home fire safety of families with young children, particularly in areas of social and financial disadvantage. Fire services and other stakeholders may consider interventions that partner with other services, such as maternal and child health services, to identify and reach those most at risk.

Within the fire fatality data, 46.7\% (n=420) of decedents were identified as having at least one disability present. Physical disabilities comprised 46.2\% of disabilities identified, while mental health and neurological disorders made up 27.8\% and 9.7\% of disabilities identified. People with a disability are likely to be over-represented in the fire fatality data. Mental health and neurological disorders are an identified risk factor for residential fire fatality. Similar to older people, there may be a lifesaving benefit in fire services and other stakeholders focusing on increasing the uptake of specialist smoke alarms appropriate to the needs of people with a disability.\ 

Some 8.2\% (n=57) of decedents were identified as Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander\ (TSI) or both. Approximately 3.3\% of the Australian population identify as Aboriginal\ or TSI (ABS, 2019a), meaning that this cohort are over-represented in the data by a\ factor of 2.5. Aboriginal/ TSI people comprised 12\% of fatalities under 65 years of age and 3\% of people over 65 years, likely reflecting the younger age structure of the\ Aboriginal and TSI population.

Smokers are over-represented to a large extent in residential fire fatalities. Of cases\ where the smoking status of the decedent was known (n=428), 65.4\% of people\ were smokers. During the study period, smoking rates in Australia decreased\ significantly, and reduced-fire-risk cigarettes were mandated in Australia in 2010. In\ the 2004/5 financial year 23.3\% of Australians were smokers. By 2014/15 this had
decreased to 15.5\%. The fatality data does not reflect any decline in the number of\ smokers who died over the course of the study period. It is unclear why this is the\ case.

Smoking materials are a major cause of ignition of fatal residential fires. For those cases where the fire cause was known, over a quarter (26.7\%, n=161) were caused by smoking materials (i.e., cigarettes, pipes etc), with just over a third of those (n=56) relating to smoking in bed. There was a strong link between smoking materials as the cause of fire and the residence being located in a relatively disadvantaged area,\ with 49\% of fires caused by smoking materials occurring in the top 25\% of most\ disadvantaged locations.

Recommendations

Fire services and other stakeholders may consider the following recommendations to reduce the incidence of preventable residential fire fatalities in Australia:

Conclusion

Preventable residential fire fatalities in Australia remain a significant public health problem, with an average of 64 fatalities each year. Deaths from residential fires have significant social, economic and emotional impacts on individuals, families, communities and also on the firefighters and other emergency service workers who attend these tragic incidents.

For the first time in over 14 years, this study provides an update on the evidence around the extent of preventable residential fire fatalities in Australia, those people most at risk and the details of fire incidents and residences where fatal fires have occurred. It provides a set of data that fire services and other stakeholders can use to develop evidence-based policy and practice to reduce the occurrence of fatal residential fires.

}, keywords = {Australia, Emergency management, Fatalities, Fire, metropolitan fire, MFB}, isbn = {978-0-6482756-3-3}, issn = {506}, author = {Coates, Lucinda and Geoff Kaandorp and Julie Harris and Jonathan Van Leeuwen and Ashley Avci and Jacob Evans and Steve George and Andrew Gissing and Robin van den Honert and Katharine Haynes} } @conference {bnh-6406, title = {Simulations of radiation heat flux on a structure from a fire in an idealised shrubland }, booktitle = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC Research Day AFAC19}, year = {2019}, month = {12/2019}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

Wildland-urban interface areas are growing rapidly. Building standards are required to ensure that the structures built in fire prone areas are resilient to fire. Australian Standard AS 3959 was developed to prescribe construction requirements for houses in bushfire prone areas. The model in AS 3959 is applied to estimate the Bushfire Attack Level (BAL) that is expected on a structure during the nominally worst-case bushfire scenario that the house can experience. Once the BAL is based on the fuel and terrain near the structure, and determines the construction requirements for the structure. AS 3959 is based upon a view-factor model of radiant heat flux, which estimates the level of heat flux expected at the structure.

}, keywords = {building standards, Fire, heat flux, structure, Wildland-urban interface}, url = {https://knowledge.aidr.org.au/resources/australian-journal-of-emergency-management-monograph-series/}, author = {Khalid Moinuddin and Duncan Sutherland} } @mastersthesis {bnh-6114, title = {Sprinkler systems for the protection of buildings from wildfire}, volume = {Doctor of Philosophy}, year = {2019}, month = {08/2019}, school = {University of Wollongong}, type = {Doctorate}, address = {Wollongong}, abstract = {

Wildfires pose a significant hazard in many residential areas around the world. Minimisation of the risk to human lives and property requires a multi-faceted approach, involving fuel reduction, fire suppression, and engineering measures to improve the resistance of buildings to the effects of intense radiant heat, burning embers and flame contact. Measures that are recommended to improve the wildfire resistance of buildings typically focus on building materials and design features, as well as fuel sources close to the building. Wildfire sprinkler systems are often promoted as an optional, additional risk-mitigation measure. Typically, such systems are designed to spray water on building external surfaces, surround the building with airborne droplets, and/or wet nearby fuel sources during wildfires.

}, keywords = {Emergency management, Fire, fire management, sprinklers}, url = {https://ro.uow.edu.au/theses1/617/}, author = {Alan Green} } @article {bnh-5425, title = {Understanding Post-Fire Fuel Dynamics using Burnt Permanent Forest Plots Report}, number = {461}, year = {2019}, month = {03/2019}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

The main goal of this study is to obtain empirical measurements of fuel loads within the first year after a fire to complement the measurements of fuel loads taken directly before the fires.\  This will not only allow us to precisely quantify the fuel loads consumed by these relatively low-severity fires, but it will also give us a baseline measurement of fuel loads.\  We can use this baseline to anchor measurements of fuel accumulation in mature wet eucalypt forests that are part of related TERN and BNHCRC studies attempting to measure both the effects of climate and stand age on fuel accumulation in wet forests.\ 

}, keywords = {ecology, ecosystems, Fire, Tasmanian fires}, author = {Furlaud, James M. and David Bowman} } @article {bnh-4998, title = {Determining threshold conditions for extreme fire behaviour}, number = {417}, year = {2018}, month = {10/2018}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, abstract = {

Flame spread is an important process in the propagation of bushfires. The likelihood of ignition and combustion rates of fuels are dependent on the type and nature of the heat flux. The majority of previous research has used static heat flux, whereby a consistent heating source is used to ignite samples in a laboratory setting. This is despite the highly dynamic heating regimes typically observed during structural and wildland fires.

}, keywords = {Fire, fire behaviour., fire modelling, fire severity, modelling}, author = {Alex Filkov and Thomas Duff and Trent Penman} } @mastersthesis {bnh-5105, title = {An evaluation of youth justice conferencing for youth misuse of fire}, year = {2018}, month = {05/2018}, school = {Queensland University of Technology}, abstract = {

This project involved an evaluation of firefighter involvement in Youth Justice Conferencing to determine whether, and if so how, this program facilitates the prevention of youth misuse of fire. Evaluation comprised quantitative analyses of a decade of Youth Justice Conferencing records and recidivism data, alongside qualitative analysis of program practitioner interviews. Findings revealed that, although there are some areas in need of improvement, Youth Justice Conferencing with firefighter involvement contributes to a reduction in the risk of general recidivism, whilst providing an avenue through which to deliver fire safety education to at-risk groups within the community.

}, keywords = {Arson, child-centred disaster risk reduction, conferencing, Fire, firefighter, juvenile, prevention, restorative, youth justice, youth misuse of fire}, doi = {10.5204/thesis.eprints.116520}, url = {https://eprints.qut.edu.au/116520/}, author = {Kamarah Pooley} } @mastersthesis {bnh-6620, title = {Fire and heavy metals: when wild and controlled fires transform un-rehabilitated mining waste}, year = {2018}, month = {05/2018}, school = {Federation University}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

Controlled fires conducted in fire prone areas are an efficient and economic option to reduce the frequency and intensity of wild fires that result in damage to human property, infrastructure and ecosystems. However, in a similar way to wild fires, controlled fires affect many of the physical and bio-geochemical properties of the forest soil, and may remobilize Potentially Toxic Elements (PTE) from vegetation and soil organic matter. The objective of this study is to investigate the mobilization of PTEs in a mined landscape after a controlled fire and to describe their temporal variations in concentrations. Soil samples were collected two days before and two days after the controlled fire, at the end of each season, and after a major rainfall in September 2016, from a legacy mine site in Maldon, Central Victoria, Australia, and analysed for PTE concentrations. The results revealed PTE mobility after the controlled fire, and most of the PTEs (As, Cd, Cu, Mn, and Zn) evidenced an increase in concentration (1.2, 1.5, 1.1, 2.9, and 1.7 times respectively) and other PTEs (Hg, Cr and Pb) shown a decrease (1.4, 1.1 and 1.1 times respectively) immediately after the fire. The increase in PTE concentration immediately after the fire is postulated to be associated with the addition of PTE enriched ash to the soil and the reduction is due to the volatilization of elements during fire. The PTEs, which increased their concentrations immediately after the fire show a temporal decrease in concentration in the post-fire soil environment due to the removal of ash and surface soil by rainfall runoff, leaching and wind activity. However, Hg shows an increase in concentration after the major rainfall event. Although, median concentrations of As, Hg, Pb, Cu and Zn exceeded the Australian and Victorian top soil averages, only As and Hg are considered to be a risk to human and aquatic ecosystems health due to their elevated concentration and toxicity. Climate change and the resulting projection for increased forest fire frequency illustrates a growing concern given the expected concomitant increase in PTE mobilization. Preparing appropriate land and water management strategies, and addressing environmental health practice and policy, specifically at the legacy mining areas require a review. This study highlights the significant risk these sites pose.

}, keywords = {controlled fires, Fire, heavy metals, mining, waste, wild fires}, url = {https://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/vital:13081}, author = {Joji Abraham} } @article {bnh-6998, title = {Firefighter involvement in Youth Justice Conferencing: Implications for fire prevention}, journal = {Fire Safety Journal}, volume = {102}, year = {2018}, month = {12/2018}, pages = {59-65}, abstract = {

In response to the {\textquoteleft}Black Christmas{\textquoteright} bushfire crisis in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, the Premier of NSW called for the utilisation of Youth Justice Conferencing to {\textquoteleft}confront young people with the harm they had caused{\textquoteright} by their misuse of fire. Legislative amendments were subsequently enacted to particularise Youth Justice Conferencing outcome plans to fire-related offences. To facilitate the inclusion of fire-specific outcome plan tasks, Juvenile Justice NSW and Fire and Rescue NSW engaged in a\ Memorandum of Understanding\ to administer\ firefighter\ involvement in Youth Justice Conferencing. Despite operating for over a decade, this approach has only recently attracted empirical inquiry. As part of a broader study, interviews with program developers, conference convenors, program coordinators, and local firefighters were conducted. Content analysis revealed five major concepts that suggest firefighter involvement in Youth Justice Conferencing has implications for fire prevention.

}, keywords = {Fire, firefighter, Juvenile arson, prevention, Youth justice conferencing, youth misuse of fire}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.firesaf.2018.11.003}, url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0379711218300171?via\%3Dihub}, author = {Kamarah Pooley} } @mastersthesis {bnh-5689, title = {Investigating bird responses to fire in the Heathy Dry Forests of Victoria, Australia}, volume = {Doctor of Philosophy}, year = {2018}, month = {02/2019}, school = {Federation University Australia}, address = {Ballarat }, abstract = {


Globally, forest birds are under pressure, from agriculture and urban development fragmenting the landscape. Adding to these pressures, changes in the patterns of global climate drivers give rise to an increase in the frequency of extreme weather events. In Victoria, Australia, changing weather conditions are resulting in increases in the frequency and extent of bushfires. Furthermore, prescribed burning is applied to the landscape in attempts to not only ameliorate the impacts from bushfire, but as part of a {\textquoteleft}pyrodiversity begets biodiversity{\textquoteright} protocol. These pressures all impact birds by reducing resources for: food, nesting and protection from predators. This thesis investigated bird responses to fire in the Heathy Dry Forests of Victoria, against variables of time-since-fire and fire frequency. Bird responses were modelled in terms of: community, foraging guilds and individual species. As a community, birds showed a resilience to both time since fire and fire frequency. Responses by foraging guilds and individual species highlighted some different responses. The common species from each foraging guild showed responses that broadly represent their guild. This thesis highlighted that an effective tool in adaptive management is to predict the trends of our common forest birds, as surrogates for entire bird communities, not just for fire responses, but for a broader reflection on the health of the landscape. The modelling of one species, the Laughing Kookaburra, showed a response to both time since fire and fire frequency, with a reduced abundance in post-fire new-growth vegetation. As this species is noted as being in decline down the east coast of Australia, it is flagged in this thesis as a species of concern. Further, this thesis investigated alpha and beta responses by the forest birds to prescribed burns of different severities. Results suggest that forest birds show little response to small prescribed burns in the landscape, regardless of severity. This may be a result of Heathy Dry Forests{\textquoteright} rapid regeneration post-fire. However, one species that exhibits site fidelity, the White-throated Treecreeper, left areas impacted by high severity prescribed burns. The White-throated Treecreeper{\textquoteright}s response flagged the importance of tree hollows being maintained in the landscape, essential for the species that require hollows for roosting and nesting.

}, keywords = {birds, Fire, forest fires}, url = {http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/167648}, author = {Diana Kuchinke} } @mastersthesis {bnh-5458, title = {Sleep and stress in on-call fire and emergency service workers}, volume = {PhD}, year = {2018}, month = {07/2018}, school = {Deakin University}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

Some aspects of sleep quantity and quality may be affected when on-call. The two main stress systems are largely unaffected by on-call work, with the exception of the cortisol awakening response. Two characteristics of the cortisol awakening response were blunted when on-call with a night callout compared to when off-call.

}, keywords = {Emergency management, emergency services, Fire}, url = {http://hdl.handle.net/10536/DRO/DU:30110841}, author = {Sarah J Hall} } @article {bnh-4738, title = {Southeast Australia Aboriginal fire forum}, year = {2018}, month = {09/2018}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

This report was written as part of the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre{\textquoteright}s {\textquoteleft}Hazards, Culture and Indigenous Communities{\textquoteright} research project (BNHCRC{\textquoteright}s HCIC). The HCIC research project focuses on collaborations between Aboriginal groups and natural hazards management agencies across southern Australia (see further Appendix 3). The BNHCRC is funded through a combination of Commonwealth research monies, as well as financial and in-kind contributions from government organisations, research institutions and nongovernment organisations. We were invited to attend the Forum and write this report by the Murumbung Rangers, with whom we have one of our case study relationships; nevertheless, this is an independent research report written with respect to the HCIC project{\textquoteright}s research priorities. The Forum facilitators, Coolamon Advisors, prepared an official Forum Report which summarises key findings and provides recommendations emerging from the speakers and participants over the first two days of the forum (Coolamon Advisors 2018). This research report includes excerpts from the Forum Report in textboxes. These reports are valuable for the work of key actors involved in cultural burning, whether they attended the forum or not.

}, keywords = {culture, Fire, indigenous, mitigation, Natural hazards}, issn = {413}, author = {Will Smith and Jessica Weir and Timothy Neale} } @mastersthesis {bnh-4653, title = {Changing Fire Regimes in Tropical and Subtropical Australia}, year = {2017}, month = {12/2017}, pages = {190}, school = {University of Queensland}, address = {St Lucia}, abstract = {

The focus of the study is to investigate regional and local past, present and future changes in fire regimes of tropical and subtropical Queensland and shifts in vegetation composition and structure. Fire has been shown to be a significant driver of ecosystem evolution, composition and distribution through its impact on biota. Within Australia fire has long played a role in shaping the landscape, with increased fire frequency, associated with heightened aridity, over the last five million years promoting the expansion of fire adapted sclerophyll vegetation across the continent. Evidence of anthropogenic fires date back to approximately 50 ka (thousand years ago) with the advent of Aboriginal occupation and fire-stick practices, however with the arrival of Europeans there was a decline in fire frequencies, related to fire exclusion that observes an increase in fire intensity and severity. A review of the introduction of tropical African perennial grasses to improve grazing in tropical and semi-arid regions of northern Australia was also undertaken. This introduction has resulted in some exotic grass species such as Gamba grass (Andropogon gayanus), Mission grass (Cenchrus polystachios syn. Pennisetum polystachion) and Guinea grass (Megathyrsus maximus syn. Panicum maximum Jacq. var. trichoglume) becoming invasive pests. Invasion by these exotic grasses has serious implications for ecosystem function, altering fire regime dynamics through increasing the distribution and abundance of fine fuels. With increased fine fuels there is a serious danger that there will be an increase in fire frequency and intensity resulting in higher severity burns and higher vegetation mortality, with possible local species extinctions and habitat modification or change. Macro charcoal and pollen records were used from Fraser Island, subtropical eastern Australia to identify fire and vegetation histories, which show substantial temporal and spatial changes in past fire frequencies and vegetation composition for the last 24,000 years. Pollen records show pyrophobic rainforest taxa dominated and then declined while pyrogenic sclerophyll arboreal taxa increased correlating with an increase in fire frequencies, and a dryer climate. This was followed by a dramatic increase in Restionaceae values at the beginning of the Holocene (~10,000 years ago) that dropped off as a marked peak in mangroves, primarily the Rhizophoraceae and Melaleuca iii occurred, possibly linked with sea level rise approximately 6000 to 5000 years ago, which was also associated with lower fire frequencies. Restionaceae then recovered from around 2 ka to the European settlement period, when a dramatic change in fire frequency occurred linked to fire suppression and was followed by vegetation thickening (i.e. increase in arboreal taxa) in the mid to late 20th century. Vegetation thickening was investigated on Fraser Island through land change analysis of aerial photographs and survey data between 1958 and 2016 of a wetland system at Moon Point. This was undertaken using the Land Change Modeller (IDRISI TerrSet), with results showing that forest and woodland communities have invaded the fringes of a restiad dominated wetland. Pollen results from adjacent sediment cores support the occurrence of vegetation thickening that appears to be linked to marked changes in fire regimes on the island associated with European management since the 19th century. A projection of further landscape change was made to 2066 and this suggested a 30\% loss in wetland extent by this time under present fire frequencies (i.e. with a mean of approximately one fire every plus/minus 12 years). Identifying past and present fire regimes and vegetation composition are important for fire modelling as this provides possible scenario based probabilities for changes in fire frequency and intensity. Modelling is useful in that it provides managers with a tool to ascertain possible scenario based outcomes depending on the input values. Here the FireBGCv2 fire simulation model has been applied to an Australian context to provide a research simulation platform for exploring fire, vegetation, and climate dynamics that can be directly applied to fire management applications. Fire has played an integral role in shaping the Australian landscape, with fire regimes driven by both climatic and anthropogenic factors during the late Quaternary period. Evidence of shifts in vegetation and fire regimes for the subtropics of Australia can be seen from pollen and charcoal analysis, with dramatic changes occurring over the past 24,000 years on Fraser Island. With the arrival and settlement of Europeans in the mid19th century, fire regimes were once again changed that resulted in further vegetation shifts due to a fire exclusion policy. Further shifts in fire regimes can be seen in tropical northern Australia through the introduction on invasive grasses increasing fuel loads and iv fire frequency, resulting in a transformed landscape, perpetuating a fire grass cycle. However in the subtropics alterations in fire management have seen a reduction in fire frequency with a thickening of vegetation along the ecotone of E. minus wetlands and sclerophyllous forests at Moon Point on Fraser Island. The complexities of fire regimes for managers is obvious, therefore there is a need for a dynamic mechanistic fire simulation model that managers can use as a tool to project present and future fire events.

}, keywords = {burning, Fire, fire impacts, fire regime, grassland, Great Sandy region., history, Queensland}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.14264/uql.2018.66}, author = {Philip Stewart} } @article {bnh-4619, title = {Statistical characterisation of wind fields over complex terrain with applications in bushfire modelling}, journal = {Research Gate}, year = {2017}, month = {12/2017}, abstract = {

The propagation of bushfire across the landscape is dependent on a variety of environmental factors, but the wind, in particular, has a major effect on both the speed and direction of fire propagation. As such, bushfire spread models, which underpin successful bushfire management, require accurate knowledge of the pattern of winds across the landscape. This can be problematic over complex terrain where winds exhibit considerable spatial variability due to wind-terrain interactions, and where detailed measurements of wind characteristics are comparatively rare. This thesis contributes two new wind datasets to address the previous lack of data available to develop and validate wind models over complex terrain. It also details analyses that focus on the statistical characterisation of wind as joint wind direction distributions, which represent the directional wind response to changing topography and surface roughness. A novel method for toroidal surface fitting is introduced and implemented to estimate the true continuous response from discrete observed data. This new method, which relies on a conceptually simple adaptation of planar techniques, is compared to the limited range of available toroidal surface estimation techniques and is shown to perform as well as, if not better than, these more sophisticated methods. Monte Carlo simulations are employed to highlight the sensitivity of statistical comparison tests to alternative distribution structures, and to validate bivariate and circular extensions of the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. These tests are applied to directional wind response pairs, showing that vegetation regrowth has a significant but varying impact across complex terrain. Finally, this thesis demonstrates how statistical approaches can be used to complement current physics-based wind modelling methods. The resulting probabilistic representations provide more accurate predictions of wind direction variability, and are better suited to emerging ensemble-based bushfire prediction frameworks. As such, they provide a superior characterisation of uncertainty across the fire modelling process; ultimately enabling fire managers to make more informed decisions.

}, keywords = {Bushfire, bushfire., Emergency management, Fire, propagation, wind modelling}, url = {https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322212511_Statistical_characterisation_of_wind_fields_over_complex_terrain_with_applications_in_bushfire_modelling}, author = {Rachael Quill} } @article {BF-4278, title = {Effects of networks on learning during emergency events}, journal = {Disaster Prevention and Management}, volume = {21}, year = {2012}, month = {2012}, pages = {584-598}, chapter = {584}, abstract = {Purpose {\textendash} This paper aims to explore the relationship between learning and the social networks employed within the context of emergency management. It hypothesises, using social network theory as a framework for analysis, that changes to interconnectedness between actors are implicated in the potential for those actors to learn and improvise in dynamically changing and emergent conditions. Design/methodology/approach {\textendash} To test the hypotheses, survey data were investigated which were collected as part of a research study with the support of the Australian Bushfire Co-operative Research Centre (CRC). This survey was completed by experienced personnel reflecting on a number of indicators in an emergency event. Findings {\textendash} Results show that increases in actors{\textquoteright} involvement within the social emergency management network influences the ability of those actors to engage in learning-related work activity. The paper infers that by developing learning related resources within the context of their social interactions these emergency personnel are better able to adapt and improvise in complex emergency events. Research limitations/implications {\textendash} As an area of further research, it would be useful to apply the existing theoretical model to the context of another domain, preferably one that shares characteristics of uncertainty and unstable environments. Originality/value {\textendash} Most existing studies of learning theory in human networks have focused on learning in situations requiring stable working relationships with no environmental uncertainties. In this paper, it is argued that the designs of existing models are useful as a building block, yet flawed for application within the context of disaster management. By presenting a model of learning-related work activity, as an ongoing aspect of network connectedness, personnel within emergency services organisations can strengthen their capacity to be flexible and adaptable.}, keywords = {Adaptability, Australia, Bushfire, Emergency management, Fire, Learning, Social networks}, issn = {0965-3562}, doi = {10.1108/09653561211278716 }, url = {http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=17063627}, author = {Jafar Hamra and Liaquat Hossain and Owen, Christine and Alireza Abbasi} }