Fire Updates

The March Bushfire CRC newsletter contains updates on the research survey work being carried out in the Perth hills following last month's fires, the Convair water bomber trial and more.

The final Fire Update for 2010 highlights the key achievements of the year for the Bushfire CRC, and reports on a visit by the Victorian Fire Commissioner and a Board meeting in NZ.

This Fire Update has a report on the Stakeholder Council AGM, a call for papers for the annual conference, and more.

This new look Fire Update contains articles on the field trips for the new Quick Guide for predicting fire behaviour in mallee country, and on the Busting Bushfire Myths public forum in Adelaide. It includes blogs from the CEO and on research and research utilisation.

The final report of the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission report was released on Saturday 31 July 2010. It makes 67 recommendations based on the extensive evidence heard by the Commission following the Black Saturday bushfires of 7 February 2009, in which 173 people died.

The Bushfire CRC has issued 10 DVDs packed with practical information for fire managers and planners, based on a range of research conducted around Australia and New Zealand.

This research project aims to reduce the consequences of emergency events to communities by investigating multi-agency information flows in emergency management coordination.

The Protecting Firefighters Information Package developed by the Bushfire CRC combines work from research projects on Safe Behaviour and Decision Making (led by Dr Mary Omodei, La Trobe University), Effective Incident Management Teams (led by Dr Christine Owen, University of Tasmania), and Firefighter Health and Safety (led by Dr Brad Aisbett, Deakin University, and David Nichols, CFA).

Immediately following any major bushfire event there is a great need to collect good information, including data about what the fire did, where it burnt and what it burnt. Collecting good quality data from a number of sources on the bushfire’s behaviour and spread is essential to reconstructing the events of the bushfire.

On 17 August the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission handed down its interim report to the Victorian Government. While there were a range of recommendations made concerning the operation of Victorian agencies there were also key recommendations that will have implications for all fire, land and emergency management agencies around Australia.