Fire Management – 101.

Over the next week or so I will present some material about basic fire management based on my personal knowledge and 40 years’ experience as a Victorian forest manager, senior firefighter and incident controller. The topics covered include –

1. Understanding fuel dynamics
2. Fire hazard
3. Fire danger indices
4. Bushfire Suppression
5. Fuel Reduction Burning (FRB)
6. Effectiveness of fire/fuel breaks
7. Mosaic burning
8. Changing climate
9. Some bushfire terminology.

There is a large body  of scientific literature, technical reports and training manuals which capture the accumulated wisdom of experienced firefighters.

There are also many facts and fallacies, myths and misunderstandings, truths, half-truths, strongly held opinions, ideological beliefs, blatant lies and occasional outright BS surrounding this complex topic.

I acknowledge the science is incomplete and there is always more to learn and understand, but there also are many alternate and, sometimes dangerous, beliefs that commonly circulate, particularly on social media.

In my years of bushfire experience, nothing is ever as simple and one dimensional as it appears, but it seems everyone is an expert on bushfires…