As temperatures heat up, University of the Sunshine Coast researchers are working on new ways to prevent bushfire harm across Australia.
The projects continue as South East Queensland enters a six-day fire ban from Thursday, and as bushfire intensity increases along with climate change and heightened fuel loads from diminished rainfall.
Listed below are several collaborative projects at UniSC's Forest Research Institute to help the country protect its people, property and environment.
Experts available for interview by request:
Bushfire modelling: how worst-case predictions could save homes
Master of Science student Anthony Power, a longtime land use consultant already helping regional authorities to plan prescribed burns this season, is developing high-tech bushfire simulations to predict worst-case scenarios.
He invented Ember software, which provides fire weather data insights, and co-led the development of Inferno, a bushfire modelling platform that won the Fire Australia Innovation Award 2025. He has worked on case studies including major fires on K’gari in 2020 and at Peregian Beach in 2019.
“My current research focuses on using big data such as weather records and topography surveys to simulate fires in specific geographic locations across Australia.
“We want to provide more certainty at a local scale, addressing key questions such as how big the flames could get, how intense at different heights, how fast it might spread.
“These factors can help us to understand what could happen in a particular landscape and how that could influence vital decisions such as development approvals or infrastructure placements.”
Link to 2025 Fire Australia awards list and K’gari presentation.
Irrigated Green Firebreaks: strategic water management to reduce bushfire risk
PhD student Jady Smith is researching water management methods for green firebreaks to help reduce the spread and intensity of bushfires in the wildland-urban interface.
“Bushfires are complex hazards that call for a range of solutions, and it is time to become more proactive than reactive”, and “Green Firebreaks have site-specific potential to enhance bushfire mitigation, preparation, response and recovery”, he says.
“Irrigating green firebreaks may strengthen their effectiveness in complementing wildfire management. For the vulnerable Wildland urban interface, irrigated green firebreaks may be a strategic wildfire management option where urban reuse water is available.”
A new paper was published this month in the global journal Fire.
Contact [email protected]
NOBURN app: using citizen science and AI to better prepare
Research Fellow Shelby Schumacher is working on NOBURN (National Bushfire Resilience Network), a project that combines citizen science and artificial intelligence to improve bushfire preparedness.
“Our app turns community photos into data to help researchers and agencies understand bushfire hazards such as the amount of forest fuel in a region.
“It also provides insights into the likelihood, severity and potential extent of burnt area from fires across Australia.”
Link to NORBURN citizen science website where you can download the app.
Contact [email protected]
Early warning system: just like storms, tech can warn of fires
Adjunct Research Fellow Sohel Shawkat is calling for authorities worldwide to invest in next-generation fire forecasting systems.
He proposes a new approach that uses remote sensing and detailed data about the functionality of plants in particular locations to detect critical moisture thresholds before ignition, beyond which probability of fire occurrence would be higher.
“It is vital to know vegetation moisture content, for example," he says.
"Climate change is drying landscapes unevenly and creating flammable conditions in once-resilient ecosystems.
“The technology exists. The science is ready. We need to forecast bushfire risk the same way we predict storms – days or even weeks in advance.”
Read 'Wildfire prediction based on plant functional traits may save the world from burning' an opinion piece authored by Shawkat Sohel,
Contact [email protected]
Industry innovation: how commercial forests can reduce fire risk
Senior Research Fellow Martin Strandgard is investigating how to minimise the impacts of fire on Australia’s commercial radiata pine estate, worth billions of dollars to the economy.
“I’m working on a three-year study to analyse the costs and benefits of removing more of the waste left on forest floors after radiata pine trees have been thinned out.
“Thinning waste can double the amount of fuel on the forest floor, considerably increasing the risk of losses from fire.”
Contact [email protected]
Fire ecology: why forest types and extreme weather make a difference
Professor Francis (Jack) Putz focuses on the role of fire ecology in the conservation and management of pine savannas and tropical forests around the world.
His latest research aims to protect tropical dry forests in Fiji from the combination of warming climate, weather events and bushfires.
Contact [email protected]
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