Southern Australian Seasonal Bushfire Outlook 2011-12

Fire Note 86:  A thick, tall band of grass extends across much of the middle of Australia from the Indian Ocean in the west to the Pacific Ocean in southern Queensland and the Great Dividing Range in New South Wales. The grass – waist- and even shoulder-high in places –  has flourished because of the heavy rains that accompanied the very strong La Niña event at the beginning of 2011.

With much of this grass now curing because of drier recent weather, the potential exists for above-normal bushfire activity across the centre of Australia during the 2011-12 southern fire season.

These expectations summarise the views of the attendees at the Southern Seasonal Bushfire Assessment Workshop, held in Adelaide on August 23 and 24. The workshop, supported by the Bushfire CRC, brought fire and land managers, climatologists  and meteorologists together to evaluate the upcoming season for the southern part of Australia, below the Tropic of Capricorn.

This Fire Note is produced from the discussions held at the workshop.  The full report from the workshop is available here. Fire Note issue 85, the seasonal outlook for northern Australia, was published on August 9 and is available here.