News and Media

Trying on the PPE at the expo stand.

More than 12,000 attended the Australian Science Festival in Canberra this year, many of them stopping to try on the fire fighter gear.

Dr Tina Bell has gained a scholarship with the prestigious Fulbright Program. Tina, a Bushfire CRC Project Leader and senior research fellow at the University of Melbourne, will travel to the Centre for Fire Research and Outreach (CFRO) at the University of California, Berkeley to study the effect of fuel reduction fires on grapevines more.

A recent visitor to the offices of the Bushfire CFC was Mr Bob Cameron, the Victorian Minister for Police and Emergency Services. Mr Cameron met with Bushfire CRC office staff and spoke to members of the Research Taskforce about their work following the Victorian fires of February 2009.

The Australian Senate passed a resolution on 11 February 2009 that highly supported the work and the ongoing plans of the Bushfire CRC. more.

The long process to secure funding for a new CRC passed its first major milestone – a formal application was submitted to the Australian Government’s Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research on Wednesday 18 March 2009 more

Sarah McCaffrey of the USDA Forest Service, has joined the Research Taskforce into the Black Saturday fires to share her research on understanding the social dynamics of fire management. More

Bushfire CRC comment for media on the current fires in Victoria can be found here.

Before the current tragic bushfires in Victoria the Bushfire CRC and the Australian Science Media Centre held an online national media briefing on bushfire research. See the coverage here.

Project Vesta fuels and fire behaviour training has been underway across Australia with the most recent training in Hobart, Tasmania. More

The communities around Mansfield in central Victoria have produced a book Wildfire in the High Country. The book, which was launched to the local area in July, is supported by the Bushfire CRC.
More

The Bushfire CRC has a new core member. ACT Emergency Services Agency and ACT Parks, Conservation and Lands will become joint core partners of the Bushfire CRC from 1 July 2008. More

Australia is at the forefront of research on community bushfire safety and resilience according to a new book. Community Bushfire Safety brings together the most important community safety research being undertaken within the Bushfire CRC. More

Fire at Ngarkat Conservation Park.

The mallee and heath landscape of Ngarkat Conservation Park in south-eastern South Australia has been deliberately set alight in one of the largest and most comprehensive fire research exercises undertaken in Australia.

More than 100 bushfire researchers and fire agency personnel from around Australia and internationally converged on the parkfor a series of controlled burns under several separate research projects designed to improve fire management in South Australia and nationally. More

A burnt out test car used in the research.

Advice for people trapped in their cars during a bushfire has been updated with a groundbreaking study into what happens to a vehicle caught in the middle of a firestorm.

The study of burnovers in civilian passenger vehicles was conducted at the NSW Rural Fire Service Hot Fire Training Facility on the New South Wales south-coast. Seven used cars were subjected to burnover conditions with a gas flame front simulator. More

The findings of Australia’s most extensive study of the behaviour of high-intensity bushfires in eucalypt forests – Project Vesta – provides valuable new tools and information for fire managers across Australia. More

Normal to above normal fire potential is expected for much of the 2007-8 fire season.

This is the outlook of fire experts from around Australia that gathered to assess the potential for bushfires over the coming months.More

More than 60 residents, land owners and fire and land management staff have heard an update on the latest bushfire research at Stawell in western Victoria. More

Research by Annemarie De Vos into the performance of bushfire face masks has been highlighted in a showcase of early career scientists by the CRC Association. More

A unique mobile laboratory that measures greenhouse gases in Australia’s high country has been launched. More

A visit to the bushfire affected areas around Anakie and the Brisbane Ranges brought a week long conference for science journalists to a close.

More than 500 journalists from around the world attended the World Science Journalists Conference 2007 in Melbourne (16-20 April). In addition to the day tour on the final day, the Bushfire CRC coordinated a session on "Wildfire: Friend or Foe" and an exhibition stand shared with other Cooperative Research Centres. More

Cooma residents have heard about a range of bushfire research projects underway in the region that are likely to influence future land management practices, in Australia and possibly internationally. More

The Governing Board of the Bushfire CRC has appointed Len Foster AO as its new chairman.

Mr Foster recently retired as chief executive officer of the Australasian Fire Authorities Council and as chairman of the Country Fire Authority of Victoria. Mr Foster took up the position of Chairman of the Bushfire CRC on 1 April 2007.

The inaugural Chairman of the Bushfire CRC, Ian MacDougall, retired from the position on 31 March 2007. More

The Bushfire CRC hosted a National Bushfire Forum at Parliament House in Canberra on Tuesday 27 February 2007.
Around 150 people attended the event and heard speakers including three Australian Government ministers (including Attorney General Phillip Ruddock, pictured) and representatives from fire and land management agencies and from the water and forestry industries.
The one-day forum invited experts from around Australia and internationally to discuss the impact that bushfires have on the environment, industry and communities. More