David McLoughlin

Erosion and local flooding after fire in mountainous terrain can have adverse impacts on water resources and infrastructure. This Fire Note, by University of Melbourne Bushfire CRC Research Fellow Petter Nyman, is the result of extensive research into the issues raised.

Pioneering Bushfire CRC research is helping children learn about bushfires and other hazards as well as helping education, emergency service and other authorities enhance the effectiveness of bushfire education campaigns.

Burning Issues, the new book on prescribed burning by Professor Mark Adams of the University of Sydney and Dr Peter Attiwill of the University of Melbourne, has been officially launched by the Hon Bernard Teague, AO, the chair of the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission.

The importance of communities in disaster management is increasingly being recognised, but a potential difficulty with integrating “the community” into policy discussions is that the term itself often remains vague and undefined.

The Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre has produced a handy booklet for community bushfire safety researchers that provides a checklist of questions about household bushfire preparation activities.

The middle of Australia from coast to coast  - as well as northern Victoria - has the potential for above-normal bushfire activity this coming southern fire season because of very large areas of drying grass that grew extensively across the continent following the heavy rains last summer.

The AFAC & Bushfire CRC Conference in Sydney starts on Monday at  Darling Harbour.

Large areas of Northern Australia face above-normal fire potential for the 2011 fire season. The main cause of the above-normal risk is strong vegetation growth in many areas fuelled by the wet weather that accompanied the very strong La Niña event of 2010-11.

Fires caused by lightning are responsible for a large proportion of the area burnt by bushfires throughout Australia and the world.Bushfire CRC researcher Dr Andrew Dowdy and project leader Graham Mills – both with the Bureau of Meteorology – tracked lightning data to identify when and how often fires were likely to follow.

The rural-urban interface is an environment characterised  by a complex mixture of fuels, resulting in an increased risk of toxic products in the smoke from fires.