Science is shaping how Australia can better prepare for devastating bushfire seasons with the release of comprehensive research based on the major issues of the 2019-20 Black Summer fire season.
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The experience in the Conjola and Batemans Bay areas is featured in the 'Understanding Black Summer Through Research' report - see below.
The wide-ranging Black Summer research program was undertaken by Natural Hazards Research Australia and the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre in the years since the 2019-20 fire season, with funding from the Australian Government and partners.
The program drew on the expertise of Australia's best fire and climate scientists, human geographers, land managers and public health and recovery experts at 28 research institutions, First Nations organisations and fire and land management agencies.
The Conjola and Batemans Bay experience features in a section of the report - Property Damage and Resilience on NSW South Coast in January 2020.
Chief Executive Officer of Natural Hazards Research Australia, Andrew Gissing, said the research was based on the issues of the 2019-20 fire season, but the findings can be applied to bushfire management, safety and community resilience for all natural hazards around Australia.
"This is vital new Australian science about how to keep our landscapes and people safe from bushfire. Our fire seasons are getting longer and dangerous bushfire days are becoming more frequent. We need to be smarter and use this new scientific knowledge and research to improve the ways we live with fire," Mr Gissing said.
"The 2019-20 bushfires were long and challenging. This research has improved our understanding of how the extremely dry conditions and record-breaking temperatures impacted our weather in ways that previously were not as well-understood."
He said the research would guide how bushfire risk can best be managed through better science, policy and practices.
"The strength of the science was its multi-disciplinary approach that will lead to action - better bushfire modelling, better warnings, better land management including enabling cultural fire and better recovery after a disaster for those affected will come from this research," he said.
Property Damage and Resilience on NSW South Coast in January 2020 - researchers in Lake Conjola and Batemans Bay areas
This research was funded through the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC's Quick Response Fund and was completed by Steven George, James O'Brien, Salomé Hussein and Jonathan Van Leeuwen at Risk Frontiers.
Researchers were deployed to Moruya, Mogo, Malua Bay, Rosedale, Batemans Bay and Lake Conjola in January 2020 to assess property damage and resilience, specifically building age, performance of construction materials and structural vulnerability due to proximity to bushland.
The majority of the damage in these areas occurred in December 2019, as catastrophic weather intensified existing fire fronts.
In January 2020, researchers assessed 426 bushfire-affected properties.
Industries and infrastructure affected included bowling/services clubs, unit blocks, heritage parks, industrial complexes with numerous businesses, and electricity infrastructure (including power poles and wires along the Princes Highway).
Findings include:
- 92% of buildings observed were completely destroyed, indicating that once a building catches fire, regardless of construction material, it will likely be unsalvageable. Note that this does not include all bushfire-affected buildings, only those observed.
- 'Non-flammable' materials demonstrated some resilience to fire, at times remaining wholly or partially intact. However, the remaining materials (including timber beams, brick/masonry and metal frames), once alight or heat-impacted, would ultimately render the entire building unsalvageable.
- Of the partially damaged properties observed, the building features most often impacted by fire were constructed from timber, such as external stairs, decking or fascia materials.
- Proximity to bushland played a significant role in property loss, where approximately 38% of destroyed buildings were situated within 1 metre of surrounding bush. However, houses situated further distances from bushland were also impacted (mostly by wind-carried embers).
"The scale of property loss during the 2019-20 bushfire season presents an opportunity to conduct further damage surveys, prior to recovery and debris removal, which would provide a considerable foundation of evidence to assess performance of newer buildings and inform future building design," the report said.
Related:
More insights from the research
The following insights can be gained from the Black Summer research program, as summarised in the new Understanding the Black Summer bushfires through research report.
Fire predictive services and fire management
Fire prediction research focused on the complex interactions between bushfires and the atmosphere, fuel and soil moisture. The science provides better knowledge of how soil and vegetation moisture affect fire risk at local levels, as well as the intricacies of bushfire and atmosphere interaction. Understanding these trends will help improve fire danger predictions and community warnings for specific areas. The research provides new insights into how different vegetation reduces wind speed. This will lead to improvements in bushfire behaviour modelling, warnings to those in the path of bushfires and better evaluation of aerial firefighting drops.
Training is now in development for fire behaviour analysts and fire meteorologists to better recognise the factors that increase fire risk, both in the atmosphere and in the landscape over scales of days, weeks, months and years. Insights were also gained into how complex fire prediction information can be better tailored to community needs.
The research also showed that there is no one-size-fits-all approach for prescribed burning and that local conditions and variations matter. The type of landscape, vegetation, time since prescribed burn, type of prescribed burn and the weather conditions on the day of the bushfire are all significant factors. This new knowledge will help fire and land management agencies measure the impacts of future prescribed burns.
Cultural land management
This research approached First Nations cultural land management as an essential part of creating well-prepared and resilient communities and landscapes across the country. The studies developed foundations, recommendations and modelling for future First Nations-led and co-designed research programs that enable and empower cultural fire and land management practices across Australia. This research is being extended to build on the successful practices from northern Australia to empower and enable cultural fire and land management in south-east Australia to improve relationships between First Nations communities and emergency agencies, ultimately leading to healthier country and reduced bushfire risk.
Community-centred disaster risk reduction
This research focused on understanding and assisting communities and governments in enabling effective and efficient community participation and leadership in disaster preparation, relief and recovery. This included research that investigated community attitudes and experiences of the 2019-20 bushfire season in New South Wales, looking at how people were affected by the bushfire and what actions they took. Findings highlighted the complexities of community preparedness and responses to bushfire, and the need for integrated and holistic responses to risk reduction across governments, fire and emergency services, businesses and communities at risk.
Research also explored how local communities can lead their own recovery with better support from governments and other agencies. The findings show that a flexible approach - in which government and recovery organisations are led by community needs - is key for successful recovery.
Bushfire data and reconstruction
Projects across Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia addressed interrelated bushfire reconstruction gaps, including wind, extreme fire, satellite observations, prescribed burning and risk modelling. Each project looked at a specific element of the 2019-20 bushfires in detail to understand what additional knowledge, technology or tools could be used to understand fire risk and fire behaviour specific to different geographical areas and vegetation types.
More to come ...
