Benefits from a decade of fire research

Created date

Thursday, March 20, 2014 - 11:23pm

More than a decade ago, Australia and New Zealand embarked on a coordinated fire science program through the Bushfire CRC – the first such effort to include a broad scope of scientific disciplines that was nationally coordinated and addressing user needs.

The bushfires of the scale experienced on Black Saturday in 2009 raised many research questions for agencies right across Australia and New Zealand. It was on this foundation that the second phase of Bushfire CRC research was built. As the research findings from the last three years become available, the focus of our work quite rightly turns to utilisation.

A significant aspect of this will be the Putting Research To Good Use forum series over the coming months. Planning is well underway, and will enable all partners to be informed of the research outcomes. Your participation is vital. This will start the thinking about how the science, a considerable investment, can best be used by all agencies. Ongoing research utilisation will allow more intense thinking about the implications of the research and potential follow up actions. With time, this will ensure that your 10-year investment in bushfire science is utilised to its potential. The best value from the research will be achieved when the findings are acted on by our end user partners and communities.

The tweaks to the Fire Notes, are another example of our ongoing utilisation focus. Read more about this here. Topics in each edition will help readers quickly identify the focus of the work, the activity sheets will assist you in your thinking, and the social media tools will enable easy sharing to your networks. Make sure you spread the word.