Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Trial By Fire: Natural Hazards, Mixed-Methods And Cultural Research, Christine Eriksen, Nicholas J. Gill, Ross A. Bradstock

Christine Eriksen

This paper considers the issues of research 'relevance' and 'use' to reflect upon a cultural geography research project on bushfire that did not begin with any specific aim of being useful to policy makers but which has garnered considerable and ongoing interest from a broad audience. It provides an example of how the integration of quantitative and qualitative research methods and data can enhance research into cultural aspects of natural hazards whilst simultaneously playing a key role in ensuring that the research results are of interest to a wide range of groups. Using a mixed-methods research approach was found to …

Background Reading: Department Of Agriculture, 2013 Budget Overview, United States. Forest Service, United States. Department Of Agriculture

The Future of Natural Resources Policy (December 6)

57 pages.

"Fiscal Year 2013 Budget Overview"

"February 2012"

"Background Reading"

The Future of Natural Resources Policy: This forum will provide a post-election perspective on some of the challenges and opportunities that natural resources, public lands, and energy policymakers in Washington are likely to face in the next four years. An expert panel will discuss the dynamics in the Department of the Interior, the Department of Agriculture, and Congress, and how their evolving policies are likely to affect Colorado in the coming years.

Zach's News, Georgia Southern University, Zach S. Henderson Library

University Libraries News Online (2008-2023)

• FIRE DRILL, Friday 12/7 at 3:35pm

Late Pleistocene Climate, Vegetation, And Fire History From A Southern Appalachian Bog, Whiteoak Bottoms, Nantahala National Forest, North Carolina, U.S.A., Mathew Stephen Boehm

Masters Theses

I examined loss-on-ignition, pollen, and charcoal evidence of climate, vegetation, and fire history at Whiteoak Bottoms (35º04’44”N, 83º31’50”W; 1032 m elevation), a peat-forming wetland located along the Nantahala River in western North Carolina. Previous research by J. McDonald and D. Leigh revealed that this wetland formed in a paleochannel of the Nantahala River between 15,000 and 14,000 cal yr BP. I obtained additional AMS radiocarbon dates, carried out high-resolution loss-on-ignition analysis, and examined pollen and microscopic charcoal assemblages in a 157-cm sediment core from the previous study. Radiocarbon dates and stratigraphic analyses indicate that much of the Holocene is missing …

The Iso Building Code Effectiveness Grading Schedule, Jody Dwyer

MTAS Publications: Full Publications

ISO works with municipal building-code authorities to assess and enforce building codes through its Building Code Effectiveness Grading Schedule (BCEGS) program. The BCEGS program assesses the building codes in effect in a community and how that community enforces them, with special emphasis on mitigating losses from natural hazards.

Trial By Fire: Natural Hazards, Mixed-Methods And Cultural Research, Christine Eriksen, Nicholas J. Gill, Ross A. Bradstock

Nicholas J Gill

This paper considers the issues of research 'relevance' and 'use' to reflect upon a cultural geography research project on bushfire that did not begin with any specific aim of being useful to policy makers but which has garnered considerable and ongoing interest from a broad audience. It provides an example of how the integration of quantitative and qualitative research methods and data can enhance research into cultural aspects of natural hazards whilst simultaneously playing a key role in ensuring that the research results are of interest to a wide range of groups. Using a mixed-methods research approach was found to …

Using Lidar To Assess The Effect Of Fire And Floods On Upland Peat Bogs, Waterfall Gully, Mount Lofty Ranges, South Australia, Javier Leon Patino, Solomon Buckman, Robert P. Bourman, Rowena Morris, Katherine C. Brownlie

Solomon Buckman Dr.

A flood exceeding the 100 year average recurrence interval in November 2005 led to the failure of an upland peat bog in Waterfall Gully. The area is prone to severe bushfire and flood events and the control dam at the base of First Falls was filled with sediment sourced from Wilson Bog. A resistant quartzite bar at Fourth Falls has formed a natural constriction point against which burnt logs and debris have collected following previous fire events forming a natural dam resulting in sediment/peat accumulation upstream. The failure of the bog was inevitable as the vegetative material in the log-jam …

The Dirt On Assessing Post-Fire Erosion In The Mount Lofty Ranges: Comparing Methods, Rowena H. Morris, Solomon Buckman, Paul Connelly, Deirdre Dragovich, Bertram Ostendorf, Ross A. Bradstock

Solomon Buckman Dr.

Land managers are required to assess a range of environmental attributes prior to and after prescribed burning. Current environmental assessments vary depending on the organisation involved and the existing information about localised soil erosion. Auditing successful environmental assessments requires ongoing field monitoring to evaluate whether the magnitude and extent of predicted post-fire impacts are comparable. The impacts of post-fire erosion were assessed by the authors using the techniques of water sampling, sediment traps, erosion pins, laser scanning, photogrammetry and visual field assessment. Each data collecting method varies in its spatial and temporal reach in terms of monitoring landscape changes in …

Technical Bulletins: Use Of Acquired Structures For Training, Dennis Wolf

MTAS Publications: Technical Bulletins

Live fire training in an acquired structure is very valuable as it provides firefighters with some of the real life experience they need to be effective firefighters. Many communities do not have access to a training facility with a dedicated live fire building or smoke house, so using an acquired structure can provide a local opportunity to train under realistic conditions.

Technical Bulletins: Let Me Tell You A Story: How An Annual Report Will Benefit Your Fire Department, Dennis Wolf

MTAS Publications: Technical Bulletins

A fire department annual report is an excellent tool for a fire department to use to tell its story to the community and to build community support for its efforts and needs.

Fire Department Accreditation: A New Way Of Evaluating Efficiency And Effectiveness Of Fire Departments (2012), Dennis Wolf

MTAS Publications: Full Publications

Accreditation is a way to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of a fire department by determining community risks and fire safety needs, accurately evaluating the organization’s performance, and providing a method for continuous improvement.

Hot Topic: Flsa Firefighter Definition Revised, Dennis Wolf, Richard Stokes

MTAS Publications: Hot Topics

Clarification of an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act regarding the definition of "an employee in fire protection activities."

Compensation And Employee Status Of Volunteer Firefighters, Dennis Wolf

MTAS Publications: Full Publications

This publication addresses the complex issues surrounding the rules and opinions on whether a volunteer firefighter is a volunteer or an employee and whether any compensation or remuneration the volunteer firefighter receives for services provided is subject to withholding for income tax, social security, or Medicare.

Recruitment Of Larix Sibirica Ledeb. In Closed Forest Stands, On Clear-Felling Sites And At Fire-Sites In The Forests Of Mongolia, Vasiliy T. Yarmishko, Nikolay N. Slemnev

Erforschung biologischer Ressourcen der Mongolei / Exploration into the Biological Resources of Mongolia, ISSN 0440-1298

The paper deals with recruitment patterns in larch forests of Mongolia following anthropogenic impacts (felling, fires), and describes successional trends in highland forest communities. It is established that mass seed recruitment of Larix sibirica Ledeb. took place during anomalous combinations of hydrothermal conditions supposedly occurring at periods of about 100 years. During the last decades, frequent fires of various intensities put serious constraints on reforestation of the larch, and induced successional trends in disturbed forests.

The Relationship Between Particulate Pollution Levels In Australian Cities, Meteorology, And Landscape Fire Activity Detected From Modis Hotspots, Owen F. Price, Grant J. Williamson, Sarah B. Henderson, Fay Johnston, David M. J. S Bowman

Faculty of Science - Papers (Archive)

Generally, sigmoid curves are used to describe the growth of animals over their lifetime. However, because growth rates often differ over an animal's lifetime a single curve may not accurately capture the growth. Broken-stick models constrained to pass through a common point have been proposed to describe the different growth phases, but these are often unsatisfactory because essentially there are still two functions that describe the lifetime growth. To provide a single, converged model to age animals with disparate growth phases we developed a smoothly joining two-phase nonlinear function (SJ2P), tailored to provide a more accurate description of lifetime growth …

Physiological Employment Standards For Firefighters: Report 2: The Physiological Demands Of Performing Physically Demanding Fire-Fighting Duties, Nigel A.S. Taylor, Hugh Fullagar, John A. Sampson, Daniel Steven Lee, Sean Notley, Simon Burley, Herbert Groeller

Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: part A

The aim of this research was to facilitate the identification of capable and robust recruits for Fire & Rescue New South Wales (FRNSW), such that it could sustain the capability of its workforce, whilst simultaneously minimising the risk of injury to both firefighters and members of the community.

Using Remotely-Sensed Fuel Connectivity Patterns As A Tool For Fire Danger Monitoring, Gabriele Caccamo, Laurie A. Chisholm, Ross A. Bradstock, Marjetta L. Puotinen

Faculty of Science - Papers (Archive)

Spatial connectivity of areas of dry fuels is considered a significant influence on the incidence of large fires. Precipitation patterns can dynamically affect fuel connectivity through controls on the distribution of dry fuels. Spatio-temporal monitoring of precipitation-driven variations in dry fuel connectivity patterns could therefore offer the potential to monitor fire danger. In this paper we present an innovative graph theoretic-based approach to monitor fire danger using remotely sensed patterns of dry fuel connectivity. We analysed the temporal evolution of dry fuel connectivity in south-eastern Australia during recent fire seasons. The analysis showed that rapid changes in the connectivity of …

Fire Regimes And Carbon In Australian Vegetation, Richard J. Williams, Ross A. Bradstock, Damian Barrett, Jason Beringer, Mathias M. Boer, Geoffrey J. Cary, Garry D. Cook, A Malcolm Gill, Lindsay B. Hutley, Heather Keith, Stefan W. Maier, Cp (Mick) Meyer, Owen Price, Stephen H. Roxburgh, Jeremy Russell-Smith

Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: part A

Fires regularly affect many of the world's terrestrial ecosystems, and, as a result, fires mediate the exchange of greenhouse gases (GHG) between the land and the atmosphere at a global scale and affect the capacity of terrestrial ecosystems to store carbon (Bowman et al. 2009). Variations in fire -regimes can therefore potentially affect the global, regional and local carbon balance and, potentially, climate change itself (Bonan 2008). Here we examine how variation in fire regimes (Gill 1975; Bradstock et al. 2002) will potentially affect carbon in fire-prone Australian ecosystems via interactions with the stocks and transfers of carbon that are …

Global Change And Fire Regimes In Australia, Geoffrey J. Cary, Ross A. Bradstock, A Malcolm Gill, Richard J. Williams

Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: part A

Global change can be defined strictly in terms of changes in atmospheric composition, climate and land use (Walker and Steffen 1996), although broader definitions also include human population, economy and urbanisation (Steffen et al. 2004). In Australia, global change significantly affects the drivers of fire activity and there is potential for considerable changes in fire regimes. It is widely accepted that carbon dioxide (C02) concentration in the atmosphere is steadily increasing (see Steele et al. 2007), as is nitrous oxide (Forster et al. 2007). Atmospheric methane concentration has also risen significantly, but is now relatively constant (Beer et al. 2006). …

The Drivers Of Effectiveness Of Prescribed Fire Treatment, Owen Francis Price

Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: part A

Prescribed burning for fuel reduction is a major strategy for reducing the risk from unplanned fire. Although there are theoretical studies suggesting that prescribed fire has a strong negative influence on the subsequent area of unplanned fire (so-called leverage), many empirical studies find a more modest influence. Here, I develop a series of simulations to explore the landscape drivers of leverage. Leverage declines with treatment level in a nonlinear, "decay" relationship, implying diminishing effectiveness. The spatial configuration of the prescribed fire treatment has a major effect: long linear (gridded) barriers are far more effective than patch barriers, but gaps in …

Climate Change, Fuel And Fire Behaviour In A Eucalypt Forest, Stuart Matthews, Andrew L. Sullivan, Penny Watson, Richard J. Williams

Faculty of Science - Papers (Archive)

A suite of models was used to examine the links between climate, fuels and fire behaviour in dry eucalypt forests in south-eastern Australia. Predictions from a downscaled climate model were used to drive models of fuel amount, the moisture content of fuels and two models of forest fire behaviour at a location in western Sydney in New South Wales, Australia. We found that a warming and drying climate produced lower fine fuel amounts, but greater availability of this fuel to burn due to lower moisture contents. Changing fuel load had only a small effect on fuel moisture. A warmer, drier …

The Influence Of Prescribed Fire On The Extent Of Wildfire In Savanna Landscapes Of Western Arnhem Land, Australia, Owen F. Price, Jeremy Russell-Smith, Felicity Watt

Faculty of Science - Papers (Archive)

Fire regimes in many north Australian savanna regions are today characterised by frequent wildfires occurring in the latter part of the 7-month dry season. A fire management program instigated from 2005 over 24 000 km2 of biodiversity-rich Western Arnhem Land aims to reduce the area and severity of late dry-season fires, and associated greenhouse gas emissions, through targeted early dry-season prescribed burning. This study used fire history mapping derived mostly from Landsat imagery over the period 1990-2009 and statistical modelling to quantify the mitigation of late dry-season wildfire through prescribed burning. From 2005, there has been a reduction in mean …

Future Fire Regimes Of Australian Ecosystems: New Perspectives On Enduring Questions Of Management, Ross A. Bradstock, Richard J. Williams, A Malcolm Gill

Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: part A

This book provides a contemporary overview of the state of knowledge of fire as a shaper of biodiversity and ecosystems in Australia, along with insights into the way in which a 'flammable Australia' may fare under future climate change. It comes at the end of a decade (2000 to 2010) of extraordinary fire activity in Australia, matched by heightened public interest in fire and debate about its management. The decade commenced with major fire activity between 2000 and 2002 in the central and north western deserts (Nano et al. 2012, Chapter 9), at scales not seen in decades. In the …

Ua12/8 Annual Campus Security And Fire Report, Wku Police

WKU Archives Records

This report is designed to provide students, prospective students, parents, faculty, and staff with accurate crime statistics, information on university services, and crime prevention programs. These programs are designed to help inform our campus community about safety practices that will help reduce the risk of becoming a victim of crime. These safe practices can provide individuals with vital information that they can carry with them through college and beyond, keeping them safe for the rest of their lives.