A long fire season in store

It is only November and already we are talking up a long fire season. Unfortunately, with severe bushfires across multiple states there have been a number of fatalities and hundreds of homes lost. All of us at the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC would like to acknowledge everyone who has been, and are still, affected by the current fires - it is a terrible time, particularly for those who have lost loved ones. It does remind us why we are doing what we are doing and focuses us on what is important.

As Australia potentially faces one of its worst fire seasons, debate has raged on the causes and solutions. The CRC has led some of the commentary on several aspects from a perspective of what the research evidence is showing and what we know. We have been approached by many media outlets – local, state, national and international – to provide evidence-based commentary on topics as broad as the role that climate change is playing, what does catastrophic fire danger mean for the community, understanding and perceiving risk and other topics that are covered by our research agenda. If you add all the potential audience numbers for the places we have been broadcast to we have easily exceeded one million viewers and listeners across Australia and the world.

It is interesting to see how the CRC is perceived during these types of events - the background discussions we have with many of the media outlets paint a picture of how others see us. The media frequently talk about how it is refreshing to get people to speak who do not have an agenda to push and approach the issues from an authoritative and evidence informed viewpoint. This goes directly to the credibility built by all of those involved with CRC, something that has taken quite some time to build. But it isn’t just the media that seek this information - our governments also gain significant benefits from this credibility, particularly in the development of policy.

It is already a bad year for fire, and in the south it isn’t even summer yet, I am sure that many of the people in the CRC, not just the head office, will soon be called upon to contribute to the task. Keep up the great work, our communities need us.