Bushfires and the role of scientists: Home

The Licola bushfire burnt with such intensity it generated a huge thundercloud that blasted more than 1200 lightning strikes at nearby forests, igniting several small fires.

Some Bunyip residents claim fire crews "didn't turn up" to help them

MyFireWatch provides bushfire location information in a quickly accessible form, designed for general public use. Every Australian State and Territory can be searched for current fires.

The “Fire Triangle” illustrates the three essential components of a bush fire: heat, oxygen and fuel. If any of these three is missing, fires cannot start or keep burning.

Fires are an inescapable part of life in Australia; they have been occurring for millennia, and regardless of our actions, they will continue.

The smell of smoke in the autumn and spring air is an increasingly familiar one to many Australians. It signifies that time of year when land management agencies in southern Australia feverishly try to meet their burning targets.

Before Aboriginal people populated the Australian continent some 40,000 to 60,000 years ago, the major cause of fires would have been lightning. Aboriginal people learnt to harness the naturally recurring fire caused by lightning and other sources to their advantage, which resulted in skilful burning of landscapes for many different purposes.

How does a bushfire begin and spread, and what happens to the environment once it's moved through?

Chemical fire retardants help delay or prevent combustion, but there are potential health and environmental issues around the use and production of the chemicals, and the cost or possible harms of chemical fire retardants need to be weighed up against the benefits.

The true cost of bushfires to our community.

Our approach to reducing the risk of bushfire in Victoria

CSIRO has provided climate and disaster resilience science and guidance to governments, agencies, industries and communities since 1944. We work collaboratively to understand fire preparedness, prediction, management, behaviour and recovery.

We issue fire weather warnings when forecast weather conditions are likely to be dangerous. The Fire Weather Knowledge Centre provides information about bushfires and fire weather as well as information about our warnings.

Scientists from the CSIRO have unveiled a new software system aimed at predicting and tracking the movement of bushfires.

Keeping your home and family safe from bushfire involves many things.

Burn-offs are a routine part of preparations for bushfire season, but modelling suggests fire authorities need to target unrealistic amounts of land to have any meaningful effect on taming future wildfires.

The McArthur Mk5 Forest Fire Danger Meter is used by rural fire authorities to forecast fire danger in Australian forests.

The Blue Mountains economy is expected to take a $71 million hit from the October bushfires, even though its tourist attractions were untouched by fire.

Great Ocean Road towns are forecast to lose almost $40 million in tourism earnings in their busiest period of the year due to the bushfires driving holidaymakers away.

Exposure to smoke from fires can worsen asthma and other respiratory conditions, cause coughing and shortness of breath and irritate the eyes, nose and throat.
Large particles in bushfire smoke irritate the eyes, nose, throat and lungs. The finer particles can penetrate deep into the lungs and are more harmful. Smoke also contains toxic gases, such as carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen oxides.

Fuel reduction burns would not have stopped bushfires that have destroyed 11 properties in eastern Victoria, the state’s emergency management minister has said.