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The 2019-2020 fire season was the worst NSW has ever recorded, according to the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience.
Over the course of a few months, 26 lives were lost, 2448 homes were destroyed and 5.5 million hectares of land was burnt.
Now, experts from Natural Hazards Research Australia and the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre have released the results of years of research into the disaster – and how we can stop it from happening again.
The program drew on the expertise of Australia’s top fire and climate scientists, human geographers, land managers, public health and recovery experts at 28 research institutions, First Nations organisations and fire and land management agencies.
Natural Hazards Research Australia CEO Andrew Gissing said the information was based on the issues of the 2019-20 fire season, but the findings can be applied to bushfire management, safety, and community resilience, for all natural hazards around Australia.
“This is vital new Australian science about how to keep our landscapes and people safe from bushfire. Our fire seasons are getting longer and dangerous bushfire days are becoming more frequent,” Gissing said.
“This research will guide how bushfire risk can best be managed through better science, policy and practices.”
Fire predictive services and fire management
Fire prediction research focused on the complex interactions between bushfires and the atmosphere, fuel and soil moisture.
The science provides better knowledge of how soil and vegetation moisture affect fire risk at local levels, as well as the intricacies of bushfire and atmosphere interaction.
Understanding these trends will help improve fire danger predictions and community warnings for specific areas, researchers said.
The research also provides new insights into how different vegetation reduces windspeed, which could improve bushfire behaviour modelling, warnings to those in the path of bushfires and better evaluation of aerial firefighting drops.
Training is now in development for fire behaviour analysts and fire meteorologists to better recognise the factors that increase fire risk, both in the atmosphere and in the landscape over scales of days, weeks, months and years.
The research also showed that there is no one-size-fits-all approach for prescribed burning and that local conditions and variations matter.
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The type of landscape, vegetation, time since prescribed burn, type of prescribed burn and the weather conditions on the day of the bushfire are all significant factors.
This research approached First Nations cultural land management as an essential part of creating well-prepared and resilient communities and landscapes across the country.
The studies developed foundations, recommendations and modelling for future First Nations-led and co-designed research programs that enable and empower cultural fire and land management practices across Australia.
There are already successful practices from northern Australia in place that have modelled a way to empower and enable cultural fire and land management in south-east Australia, and to improve relationships between First Nations communities and emergency agencies.
Community-centred disaster risk reduction
Researchers investigated community attitudes and experiences of the 2019-20 bushfire season in NSW, looking at how people were affected by the bushfire and what actions they took.
Findings highlighted the complexities of community preparedness and responses to bushfire, and the need for integrated and holistic responses to risk reduction across governments, fire and emergency services, businesses and communities at risk.
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Researchers also explored how local communities can lead their own recovery with better support from governments and other agencies.
The findings showed a flexible approach – in which government and recovery organisations are led by community needs – is key for successful recovery.
Bushfire data and reconstruction
Projects across Queensland, NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia addressed interrelated bushfire reconstruction gaps, including wind, extreme fire, satellite observations, prescribed burning and risk modelling.
Each project looked at a specific element of the 2019-20 bushfires in detail to understand what additional knowledge, technology or tools could be used to understand fire risk and fire behaviour specific to different geographical areas and vegetation types.
