Wildfires: ‘no longer out of the blue events’
A study by The Australian National University (ANU) researchers has revealed the Victorian wildfires have become larger and more frequent over the past twenty years.
The study maps where wildfires took place across Victoria between 1995, the start of the millennium drought, and 2020.
Co-author Professor David Lindenmayer AO says the results indicate a major overhaul is needed when it comes to fire and land management.
"This is the first time we've seen the full spatial extent of bushfires dating back 25 years," Professor Lindenmayer said.
"What we found is the state is burning more and more. Prior to 2000 we had one mega-fire in Victoria in 150 years of records. Since 2000 we've already had three.
"We can also see the extensive and frequent re-burning of previously fire-damaged areas - sometimes with a gap as short as five or six years.
"These results make a compelling case for a major policy shake-up, with the aim of reducing mega-fires, protecting unburnt areas and managing repeatedly damaged ecosystems."
In the 2019-2020 season alone, wildfires burned approximately 1.5 million hectares in Victoria - roughly double the size of the entire Melbourne metropolitan area.
"Of the 1.5 million hectares burned during the 2019-2020 fire season, more than 600,000 hectares have burned twice, and more than 112,000 hectares have burned three times over the past 25 years."
Professor Lindenmayer says if we don't make changes to fire, resource and conservation policies, vital ecosystems and livelihoods will be at risk.
"We can no longer look at bushfires as unexpected out of the blue events. The data tells us they're only becoming more frequent," he said.
While the study focused on Victoria, the researchers say their findings could apply to other areas in Australia and overseas which are under threat from widespread, recurring bushfires.
The research has been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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The Australian National University (ANU) is a member university of the NSW Smart Sensing Network (NSSN). A consortium of nine leading universities across NSW and ACT, the NSSN brings together smart sensing expertise in academia, industry and government to develop innovative solutions to key challenges such as bushfires.
The NSSN have synthesised five key opportunities that smart sensing technologies could be utilised to deliver key solutions for bushfire prediction, mitigation and response.
The five opportunities include:
1) launching bushfire-specific satellites for forecasting bushfires,
2) strengthening the current airborne scanning capabilities using advanced airborne sensing,
3) utilising weather sensing technologies to unravel fire thunderstorms,
4) creating a network of air quality sensors, consisting of low cost and existing reference stations,
5) developing machine learning & AI systems for data integration and risk analysis.
On 7 May 2020, the NSSN hosted the annual Frontiers in Sensing Forum. This year’s theme was Smart Sensing for Bushfire Prevention, Response and Mitigation – prompted by the devastating 2019-20 ‘Black Summer’ bushfires that raged across Australia.
To read more about the five opportunities and discussions that were sparked at the Forum, please click here.
To watch a recording of the NSSN Frontier in Sensing Forum 2020, please click here.