Fuelling Fire Research
A stroll down funding lane
Today the outcomes of the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Early Career Researcher Award 2025 were announced. A cool $93m AUD has been splashed on 200 research projects submitted by our best and brightest young researchers. Well, they don’t have to be young but most are - they have to be within five years of finishing their PhD (or equivalent).
Sadly, there’s another 920 pretty damn good and pretty damn bright researchers that received a rather sad, nondescript email today informing them that their application was unsuccessful. You’re allowed to apply for a DECRA twice (I did - and missed out both times). Some of the unlucky 82.9% will have another crack. Some have done their dash. Some will find a way to stick it out a little longer in research and some will not.
So what about fire research?
It’s done rather well. Here are the official details of five very fire-focused projects.
Preparing Australia for a fiery future: Five strategies to guide law reform
Dr Phillipa McCormack, University of Adelaide
Australia does not have the necessary legal frameworks to proactively mitigate bushfire risks. This project aims to support effective, equitable, and timely fire mitigation through law reform. By pioneering holistic assessment of adaptation in state fire laws, and drawing novel insights from international case studies (Canada, Spain and USA) and active stakeholder input, expected outcomes include practical pathways for law reform and new international networks for exchanging knowledge. Outputs to guide more effective implementation of evidence-based legal reform are expected to assist policy makers to enact improved fire prevention, benefitting fire agencies, communities, and ecosystems to thrive in a future increasingly defined by fire.
Health economic burden of bushfire smoke in Australia
Dr Gongbo Chen, Monash University
This project aims to systematically evaluate the health economic burden of bushfire smoke across Australia. The significance lies in its expectation to provide precise insights into the health economic impacts of bushfire smoke, thereby informing evidence-based policies and targeted mitigation strategies. Anticipated outcomes encompass a comprehensive understanding of patterns of bushfire smoke across Australia and its health and economic implications, enhancing research capacities, and contributing to refined methods for assessing environmental impacts on public health. The expected benefits include informing policies, fostering collaborations, and offering a potential model for global regions grappling with similar bushfire challenges.
Quantifying the long-term economic impacts of bushfire smoke in Australia
Dr Hemant Pullabhotla, Deakin University
The project aims to provide a new understanding of the long-term economic cost of bushfire smoke in Australia. Individuals exposed to bushfire smoke suffer adverse economic outcomes due to multiple channels. To date, the data and methods available have been insufficient to evaluate long-term effects and inform an appropriate policy response. This project leverages recent data advances and builds upon methods employed in my past research to provide a new empirical method for risk profiling of long-term smoke exposure and to generate an improved understanding of the associated economic costs. The findings would aid government agencies, fire services, and local communities in re-evaluating bushfire management practices.
Is there a link between flash drought and bushfires?
Dr Abhirup Dikshit, University of New South Wales
This project aims to quantify the influence of flash drought on bushfires. The project expects to generate new knowledge on the unexplored concerns relating to the anecdotal relationship between flash drought and bushfires. It will extend an innovative approach combining new-generation geostationary satellites with very high-resolution regional climate modeling to quantify flash drought-fire relationships, examine land-atmosphere feedback processes, and predict flash droughts using machine learning. Expected outcomes include enhanced methods to better understand flash droughts and their relationship to bushfires. It should provide significant benefits to the planning for, and management of, flash droughts and bushfires in the future.
Terrestrial ecosystem resilience to atmospheres enriched in carbon dioxide
Dr Vera Korasidis, University of Melbourne
This project aims to unlock a hidden record of our planet’s resilience to high carbon dioxide levels. Through analysing fossil pollen and charcoal preserved in sedimentary rocks, this project aims to generate new knowledge of the potential impact of climate change on forests, as well as the controls on fire frequency and intensity under greenhouse conditions. Expected outcomes include new methods for interpreting our planet’s environmental history, with improved understanding of the environmental conditions that control extinction versus adaptation in plants. This will provide significant benefits to our society and industry such as informing current vegetation adaptation efforts and improving model forecasts for future climate change.
Interesting to see two separate economic health costs of bushfire smoke projects get up. I wonder if they’ll join forces. Congrats to all and I hope I can connect with them at some point (come write a guest post here about your project!).
A couple of other projects feature fire in their project description, although wildfire doesn’t appear to be the primary focus:
Helping Citizens Share Responsibility for Democratic Climate Adaptation
Dr Chloe Lucas, University of Tasmania
This project will create new tools to help citizens participate in democratic dialogue about climate change adaptation. Climate change impacts the lives of Australians, including through more frequent and intense bushfires, floods, heatwaves, droughts and storms. However, most citizens are not given the opportunity to be involved in government decisions about how to plan for and manage these risks. This project explores games and play-based forms of group deliberation as ways to engage a wide range of citizens in setting agendas for climate adaptation policy and planning. It will identify diverse perspectives and priorities, and start place-based conversations between citizens and governments about how to thrive in a climate-changed world.
Innovative Fire-Resistant Composite Coatings for Steel Structures
Dr Wei Cai, University of South Australia
This project focuses on creating innovative fire-resistant polymer composite coatings to mitigate fire risks in steel structures. Leveraging interdisciplinary methods, it aims to pioneer fire-resistant coatings and establish a thorough understanding of fire hazard prevention in steel structures. Anticipated outcomes encompass the development of cutting-edge fire-resistant materials and novel insights into protective coating methodologies. This research is poised to significantly benefit the Australian coating and steel industries, while crucially safeguarding the lives and properties of Australians against fire hazards.
Out of curiosity, I headed over to the ARC’s Grants Search page and tried the following term “bushfire* OR wildfire*". Lo and behold, there were some 225 hits dating back to 2003. Of those 225, 41 were DECRAs (the early career ones mentioned above). The DECRA scheme started in 2013 and only 12 were funded in the first eight years. But there’s been a bit of a goldrush since then (yours truly notwithstanding).
Of course, DECRAs are just one of several grant programs. There are fellowships for mid-career (“Future Fellows”) and senior researchers (“Laureate Fellowships”). There are project-based grants (“Discovery” and “Linkage”, the latter including industry partners). There are Centres of Excellence, which collect an ice-cold $35m over 7 years. And there are the new Industry Fellowships with early, mid and senior flavours, one of which I somehow nabbed this year (about $1m over four years, thank you very much).
If we zoom out across all these funding programs, the total magnitude dished out for fire since 2003 is a hefty $130m AUD. We can dial that back a bit, since as above there’ll no doubt be some that mention fire but aren’t really about it. It’s probably not far off the mark to say that fire has received about the same amount of money across all schemes over the last 24 years as the DECRA total this year across all disciplines (i.e. $93m buckaroonies). Make of that what you will.
Hmm, looks like there might be a gremlin or two in the data. I’ll save a deeper dive for another day.