STATEWIDE NEWS
How best to burn the bush New research into the complexities of prescribed burning across Australian landscapes is supporting critical decisions about how and where to use fire to protect communities. With no one-size-fits-all approach to prescribed burning, strategies must be tailored to different environments and budgets.
the Atlas to look at how various factors, such as terrain, weather and climate change, will impact on different prescribed burning strategies in that region – including comparing the costs of different options and their effect on reducing the likelihood of life loss, property loss and landscape damage.
Drawing on cutting-edge science, the Prescribed Burning Atlas is a website designed specifically to assist and inform prescribed burning strategies. Using the Atlas, land and fire management departments can tailor their approaches in ways that best reduce bushfire risk in their local area and within available budgets.
Importantly, the Atlas can also show the likely financial costs of different strategies, and the point at which spending more money on prescribed burning does not have any measurable effect on reducing the bushfire risk.
The Atlas was developed through the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC in partnership with the University of Wollongong, the University of Melbourne and Western Sydney University. While developing the Atlas, researchers used case study areas to measure the impacts of different prescribed burning strategies on various landscape types across Australia. One of these case study areas was East Central Victoria. You can now use
In addition to East Central Victoria, the Atlas covers 12 areas across NSW, ACT, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and Queensland, comprising different types of landscapes, including temperate forests, grasslands, savannas, deserts, woodlands and scrub. You can learn more about the research behind the Atlas by visiting bnhcrc.com.au/research/ riskmitigationsolutions or you can access the Atlas today at https://prescribedburnatlas.science/. STORY BETHANY PATCH
New intranet and website coming soon Volunteers and staff will soon be able to customise the CFA intranet homepage with links to the specific applications and information they need to carry out their roles.
Subject matter experts will also be able to manage their own content on the website, to help ensure information is up to date, using a new content management system (CMS). All CFA’s websites are currently undergoing major overhauls with redesigns of the main public site, the News and Media site, and Members Online (previously known as CFA Online/Brigades Online).
On the public website, visitors will be able to set their location and get localised information about the Fire Danger Period, Fire Danger Ratings, bushfire risk, the nearest neighbourhood safer places and any CFA events happening nearby. Visitors will also be alerted to any issues of concern across the state with automated links to specific warnings on the VicEmergency website. Member Communications and Engagement Manager Bradley Thomas said implementing the new CMS is the first phase in improving CFA’s websites.
The sites will be relaunched on the new CMS over winter and will give volunteers, staff, and the wider community easier access to relevant, up-to-date information and more control over the information that’s important to them.
“This is not a ‘set and forget’,” Bradley said. “The new CMS will make it easier for the CFA digital team to continuously improve the content and usability of CFA’s websites, based on feedback from volunteers, staff, and the community.”
On Members Online, an improved menu structure and search functionality will make it easier for members to find relevant people and information. All CFA members will be able to share news, photos and videos in the Members Online news section and several paper-based forms will be replaced with online forms.
The new sites have been developed in consultation with stakeholders from across CFA including volunteers, district and region staff and various CFA directorates.
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STORY MARTIN ANDERSON
