Collaborative burn trials addressing knowledge gaps in fire behaviour - 24 July 2025
Australian farmers could benefit from burn trials conducted in paddocks of canola stubble, which indicate current fire behaviour models are overestimating the spread and behaviour of fire in the crop under mild weather conditions.
The Canola and Alternative Crop Experimental Burn project is a critical component of a national collaborative research initiative involving the Victorian Country Fire Authority (CFA), the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), and the South Australian Country Fire Service (SACFS).
The aim of the collaborative project is to enhance Australia’s current understanding of fire behaviour in non-cereal crop stubbles, particularly canola and legume stubble, to address significant gaps in current fire behaviour models.
SACFS Australian Fire Danger Rating System (AFDRS) Manager, Simeon Telfer said this collaborative project demonstrates our proactive approach to refining AFDRS, enhancing the accuracy of our fire simulators, and improving the quality and reliability of public warnings.
‘This project is a critical national partnership to address significant gaps in knowledge, as existing models are currently overestimating the fire spread risks in these fuel types under mild weather conditions,’ Mr Telfer said.
‘We are listening to communities and firefighters who have told us that canola burns differently; sometimes it will just stop spreading and other times it travels quickly, so we need to test the model.’
He said a large portion of data still needs to be collected before changes are made but initial indications show changes could be made to refine Fire Danger Rating thresholds for canola.
‘One of the main advantages of the AFDRS is its ability to adopt new research as it comes along, once it is peer reviewed, we will be able to adopt this research straight into AFDRS, which will help across the nation,’ he said.
‘We know farmers are doing it tough in South Australia as they continue to grapple with drought conditions, so we want to do our part to support them by ensuring our data provides the best available information to protect their crops and properties.’
A small delegation of fire scientists from SACFS, CFA and CSIRO have conducted stubble burns near Ungarra on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula, in conjunction with local landowners and SACFS volunteers.
CFA Senior Research Officer, Rachel Bessell, said the project helps to foster collaboration and gets more agencies involved in fire research, all while helping the community.
‘It’s not very often that volunteers get to stop and watch fire, so it’s a great learning experience for them to be involved in these burns.’
‘There’s a lot of complexities with getting these burns up and running, so we’re really appreciative of all the support from the suppression crews and the local community’
CSIRO Researcher Richard Hurley said the groundbreaking research will significantly enhance fire behavior predictions in cropping regions.
‘Currently throughout Australia, croplands are largely misunderstood and often misclassified as grasslands, which have different fuel characteristics. This highlights the need to better quantify fire propagation in these fuel types,’ Mr Hurley said.
‘From a scientific perspective, this type of research has never been done before at this scale. The next step is to conduct burns under much hotter and drier conditions to test fire behaviour at the upper end of the fire behavior index.'
The second stage of the project is planned for summer 2025/26, as soon as practicable after harvest is complete.
In this stage, fires will be lit under increased temperatures and wind speeds to measure crop stubble fires in more typical wildfire conditions.
Safety measures will be increased for the next stage of the project to ensure containment of these hotter and drier stubble fires, including additional SACFS suppression resources, burn buffers surrounding the experimental area and mineral earth breaks.
Media information
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Additional photos
SA Regional Landscapes | Flickr
2025-07-24