UNSW contributes to Bushfire CRC

09 December 2003

The spotlight is on bushfire research this week with the launch today of the Bushfire Co-operative Research Centre (CRC) by Federal Minister for Science, Peter McGauran.

Two UNSW academics at the Australian Defence Force Academy have senior roles in the Bushfire CRC. Associate Professor Rod Weber and Dr Wendy Catchpole, both of the school of physical, environmental and mathematical sciences at ADFA, will participate in the research programs to be generated by the Bushfire CRC.

Professor Weber is a joint investigator on a project to report on the current knowledge of landscape fuel management, simulation methods and cost/benefit analysis methods. Professor Weber's early work was mathematical modelling of bushfire spread but in recent years he has moved to modelling the effect of bushfires on the landscape, and which aspects of vegetation will die and which will regenerate.

Dr Catchpole, who has strong links with the US Forest Service, is a joint project leader on a Bushfire CRC project which will identify forest and heathland fuel types and preferred locations.

Dr Catchpole has been running a heathland fire behaviour research group for several years, which grew out of co-operative research between the school of mathematics and statistics at ADFA and fire behaviour researchers around Australia and in New Zealand and Europe. Scrubby heathlands refers to a relatively dense and continuous layer of vegetation near the ground. The different vegetation means that, although ignition of fire is more difficult, once a fire is underway the density of scrub means that the fire is much harder to control.

Work by Dr Catchpole's doctoral student, Matt Plucinski, was perfectly timed. Matt will receive his PhD this week for using mathematical principles to evaluate the chance of ignition in the scrubby vegetation which dominates the Sydney basin. Matt's focus was on ignition of fires in scrubby heathlands, work he hopes to continue in association with the Bushfire CRC.

Bushfire research is in three areas: fire behaviour, fire suppression and fire effects on the landscape and biodiversity.