Events

Research

Darwin 2010: Learning Lessons in a Changing World

Darwin 2010 Annual Conference - Trade Expo

With more than 900 people at the Darwin Convention Centre in September, the Bushfire CRC/AFAC Annual Conference again lived up to its reputation as the biggest fire, emergency services and land management event of the year.

The week began with Professional Development sessions across a range of topics, including one specifically aimed to introduce new researchers, students and others to the workings of the Bushfire CRC.

Over the three days of the main conference there were three separate streams of presentations from researchers, management and operational personnel, both from Australia and international.

The broader fire industry was also well represented with around 120 booths on the Trade Expo floor.

Much of the conference is now on the Knowledge Web. This includes powerpoint presentations of most speakers and video highlights.

See poster presentations from Bushfire CRC researchers below.

Research Posters

Communicating Risk
Author	Title
Prof David Morrison Patrick Dunlop Prof Carmen Lawrence Prof Colin MacLeod Prof Timothy Skinner	Distinguishing between well - and under prepared communities
Prof David Morrison Patrick Dunlop Prof Timothy Skinner Prof Carmen Lawrence Prof Colin MacLeod	Distinguishing effective from ineffective messages: Lessons from health psychology
Prof Peter Fairbrother Prof John Fien	Effective communication: Communities and bushfire
Prof David Morrison Patrick Dunlop Prof Carmen Lawrence Prof Colin MacLeod Prof Timothy Skinner	Making decisions to minimise risk: A multilevel research perspective
Prof David Morrison Patrick Dunlop Prof Carmen Lawrence Prof Colin MacLeod Prof Timothy Skinner	Preparedness for bushfire threat: The role of selective information processing
Brenda Mackie	Risk perception, preparedness and resource thoeries: The Australian bushfires
Prof Jim McLennan Glenn Elliott	Understanding community members' survival related decision - making during bushfires

Managing the Threat
Author	Title
Deb Parkin Dr Christine Owen	Emergency incident management team (IMT) training review
Dr Tina Bell Neil Cooper	Fire in the landscape
Tarryn Turnbull	Fires and hydrology of north eastern Australian mixed - species forests
Dr Tina Bell	Greenhouse gas emissions from fire and their environmental effects
Dr Chris Weston	How does fuel reduction burning influence forest carbon storage?
Colin Simpson Dr Graham Mills	Numerical modelling of wildland fire - atmosphere interactions
Dr Brad Aisbett Robyn Pearce Dr Fabienne Reisen	Occupational health & safety
Dr Brad Aisbett Robyn Pearce Dr Fabienne Reisen	Occupational health & safety surge capacity
Dr Christine Owen Prof Douglas Paton	Organising for effective incident management
Dr Gary Sheridan Dr Patrick Lane	Quantifying water quality risks following bushfire
James Minas	Use of operations research (OR) for decision support in bushfire management

Program A
Author	Title
Helen Daily Dr Stuart Anderson	Developing regional curing scenarios
Jennifer Hollis	Predicting woody fuel consumption; can existing models be accurately applied to Australian eucalypt forest fires?
Annette Salter	Simulation-based training - Examining new approaches to 'bushfire behaviour' training

Program B
Author	Title
Kerryn McTaggart Dr Tina Bell	Alpine soil as a methane sink: controlling factors and fire effects
Lyndsey Vivian Dr Geoff Cary	Fire responses of planets on rocky outcorps
Philip Zylstra	Forest flammability: Modelling and managing fire and fuel
Rowena Morris	Prescribed burning and sediment movement in the mount lofty ranges, South Australia
Andrew Edwards	Remote sensing of fire severity in north Australia
Dr Tina Bell	Smoke composition and impact on human health and ecosystems

Program C
Author	Title
Karyn Bosomworth Prof John Handmer	A climate for change? Fire management's capacity to adapt to climate change: an institutional perspective
Christine Eriksen	Playing with fire? Bushfire and everyday life changing rural landscapes
Briony Towers Prof Douglas Paton Dr Katharine Haynes	Putting research into practice: Developing bushfire safety messages for children

Program D
Author	Title
Peter Hayes Mary Omodei Prof Geoff Cumming	A "team of experts" or an "expert team":Performance differences between pre-formed and ad hoc incident management teams
Claire Johnson Prof Geoff Cumming Mary Omodei	Barriers to worst case scenario thinking: What factors stop bushfire firefighters considering the worst?
David Nichols Dr Brad Aisbett	Coronary heart disease risk in Victorian volunteer firefighters
Adrian Birch	Enhancing volunteerism by adapting to changing world
Jenni Raines	If our firefighters are arriving on shift dehydrated, why don't we make them drink beforehand?
Dr Christine Owen	Information flow and incedent management tean effectiveness
Glenn Elliott Claire Johnson Mary Omodei	Pre-mortems: Understanding how things might go wrong before they do
Jan Douglas	The role of affect in incident management teams
Julian Black Raphaele Blanchi Justin Leonard	Towards a neighbourhood-scale house loss risk assessment method for houses in the urban interface
Matthew Phillips David Nichols Dr Brad Aisbett	Validating for for duty tests for Australian volunteer firefighters suppressing bushfires

Understanding Risk
Author	Title
Rachel Carter	Catastrophic events, insurance and sufficient funding for fire services - a legal perspective
Bob Cechet	F.I.R.E. D.S.T fire impact and risk evaluation decision support tool
Dr Geoff Cary Prof Stephen Dovers Dr Malcolm Gill	Future bushfire scenarios and economics
Douglas Brown Justin Leonard	Living with bushfires
Dr Michael Eburn Prof Stephen Dovers	Mainstreaming fire law and policy
Dr Jeff Kepert Dr Kevin Tory	Modelling the Fire Weather on Black Saturday
Dr Blythe McLennan Prof John Handmer	Moving beyond the blame game: Sharing risk and responsibility
Dr Fabienne Reisen	Smoke impacts at the rural - urban interface

Barriers to sharing bushfire knowledge - video Marco DeSisto's Phd project is investigating the complex interactions in bushfire risk management. This video was recorded at the 2010 Annual Conference in Darwin.	Better community bushfire messages John Schauble is the Lead End User for the Bushfire CRC project Effective Communication - Communities and Bushfire. He was interviewed at the 2010 Bushfire CRC annual conference.
Better incident management systems Liam Fogarty is the Lead End User for the project on Effective Incident Management. He was interviewed at the 2010 Bushfire CRC annual conference.	Communicating bushfire risk under threat - video Professor Tim Skinner talks about his Bushfire CRC project "Information Processing Under Stress - Community Reactions." Tim was interviewed at the 2010 Bushfire CRC annual conference in Darwin.
Dynamic interactions between wildfire and atmosphere - video Colin Simpson's Bushfire CRC PhD is investigating the dynamic interactions between a wildfire and the surrounding atmosphere. This video was recorded at the 2010 Annual Conference in Darwin.	Fire intensity and a total fuel model - video Phil Zylstra was interviewed on his research project on "Fire intensity and a total fuel model" at the 2010 Bushfire CRC annual conference in Darwin.
Information flow in incident management teams Christine Owen is a project leader for Bushfire CRC research on incident management systems. She was interviewed at the 2010 annual conference.	Insurance law and property damage by fire - video Rachel is undertaking an analysis of Australian insurance law and the regulatory system covering property damage caused by fire. Rachel was interviewed at the 2010 Annual Conference in Darwin.
Making decisions under uncertainty James Minas is conducting his PhD project on "Making decisions under uncertainty". He was interviewed at the 2010 Bushfire CRC annual conference in Darwin.	Managing fire risk in the high country Rick McRae led the Managing the Risk component of the Bushfire CRC Highfire project. He was interviewed at the 2010 Bushfire CRC annual conference in Darwin.
Safe room options for bushfire prone houses Douglas' project is investigating and designing core or safe-room options within domestic architecture as an adaptive integrated solution to both fire protection and sustainable building design practices. He was interviewed at the 2010 Bushfire CRC annual conference in Darwin.	Training standards for IMTs Deb Parkin's PhD project will consider the contribution that the development of a minimum standard of training might have on the effectiveness of an Incident Management Team. She was interviewed at the 2010 Bushfire CRC annual conference in Darwin.
Understanding risk for community safety video Mick Ayre is the Lead End User for the Understanding Risk - Community Expectations project. He was interviewed at the 2010 Bushfire CRC annual conference	Using the fire and fuel intensity model Andrew Stark is a Bushfire CRC Lead End User and has used Phil Zylstra's research on fire and fuel models. He was interviewed at the Bushfire CRC 2010 annual conference.
Video - Sharing the responsibility of bushfire risk John Handmer is the project leader of the Bushfire CRC project Sharing Responsibility. He was interviewed at the 2010 Annual Conference.