South western Australia, parts of South Australia, and Tasmania have experienced significant widespread and severe heatwave/ drought- induced vegetation die-off in the first half of 2024. However, how the bushfire risk has been altered is unknown – this is a clear and critical gap in knowledge.
This project aims to understand the impacts of a heatwave/ drought on bushfire disaster risk by:
- quantifying fuel characteristics for the range of vegetation types affected by vegetation die-off across the southwest (and other sites, if possible)
- calculating potential fire behaviour
- identifying the interactions between climate change and bushfire risk by utilising remote sensing and heatwave/drought die-off research sites to project future die-off and bushfire risk.