This spring, the Bush Fire and Natural Hazards Research Centre (BNHRC), completed their first research project, examining how fire severity influences fuel load accumulation in the landscape. The BNHRC is a dedicated organisation, uniting university led research with agencies, fire managers and communities in a combined move to address the challenges faced by natural hazards and bushfires.
Project outline
Historically, agencies such as National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) and the NSW Rural Fire Service (NSW RFS) have based fuel load estimates on two main factors; time since the last fire, and the vegetation types present in the area. However, according to Dr Gordon and his team from Western Sydney University, they have tested a missing element of the equation – fire severity. Essentially, Gordon wanted “to determine if a hot or a cool fire, burns more fuel and then leaves more or less fuel after the fire.”
What did the results say?
The research team analysed data from surveys in the weeks immediately following bush fires across both New South Wales and Victoria. The data showed, high-severity (hot) fires left significantly less flammable vegetation behind. Whereas, lower-severity (cool) fires tended to burn in a patchier pattern, which meant more fuel remained in the landscape afterward.
“At the moment the equation says: time since fire plus vegetation type equals fuel load. We’ve just tweaked that to say: time since fire plus how hot it was plus vegetation type equals fuel load” – Dr Gordon
The main aim is to provide a better model, factoring in fire severity so that researchers can provide government agencies a much higher level of accuracy in regard to landscape level fuel loads. Whilst this seems intuitive, this missing aspect from current fuel load mapping could considerably improve statewide fuel maps and subsequent emergency responses or hazard reduction strategies.
Read the original article for more information here
What next?
The next step is figuring out how to best incorporate this data into practical outcomes and fuel prediction modelling. A step forward and potential application for this research, is the new, near real-time Fire Extent and Severity Mapping (FESM) live dashboard introduced in September 2025. This system replaces older annual PDF reports and provides near real-time data for government agencies and land managers.
The monthly release of data on the SEED portal, a central online resource that the NSW Government’s use for Sharing and Enabling Environmental Data, will support operations teams and researchers in allowing a more immediate response to the environmental impacts of wildfires.
FESM helps users to:
- classify and map fires
- understand relationships between fuels and fire behaviour
- interpret how a fire has changed the landscape
- support better land and fire management
- support on-ground actions and conservation planning.
- Originally developed in 2018, FESM uses satellite imagery and machine learning to generate detailed fire severity maps. An early operational model was used during the 2019/20 Black Summer fires.
Access the new FESM data set for 2025-26 hereWatch short video explaining the history and uses of FESM here
Image by Matt Palmer, sourced from Unsplash
Article written by Campbell Goff, Healthy Ecosystems Project Officer with the Nature Conservation Council of NSW
