Expert Alert: Bushfire Season 2024/25

Please contact experts directly, or email - [email protected]

Professor Michael Clarke
Emeritus Professor of Zoology in the Department of Environment and Genetics.

Contact: E: [email protected] M: 0427 368 851

Topic areas:

• The impact of fire (wildfire and planned burning) upon fauna, ecology and conservation biology of birds, reptiles, mammals, fish and plants.
• Climate change and its impact on fire, weather and ecosystems.

Quotes attributable to Professor Michael Clarke:

"Managing fire for people and wildlife is not rocket science, it's much more complex than that.

"We live in an increasingly challenging climate for land managers and firefighters. We need to be really clear about what we're trying to protect and the degree to which our actions can make a difference."

Dr Kyle Slade
Sessional Lecturer in the La Trobe Business School and Department of Crime, Justice and Legal Studies.

Contact: E: [email protected] M: 0416 367 777

Topic areas:

• Sociology of risk: how people encounter, interact with and respond to risk.
• The risk perspectives and experiences of residents of bushfire-prone areas in Victoria, Australia.
• How tensions between institutional designations of risk and personal experiences of risk produce competing expectations around hazard management and response.

Quotes attributable to Dr Kyle Slade:

"One of the challenges people experience when encountering any risk information - including bushfire communications - is determining 'How much of this is relevant to me?'

"Hazards and dangers are often found in places, experiences or activities that don't actually feel that risky.

"People rely on other people to help them experience feelings of risk. More isolated members of the community may not have someone to help them experience this and may not be able to help others experience this either."

Professor Jim McLennan
Adjunct Professor in the School of Psychology and Public Health.

Contact: E: [email protected] M: 0438 096 548

Topic areas:

• New housing developments abutting bushland
• Household and community bushfire risk awareness
• Preparedness for bushfire threat
• CFA volunteers and volunteer fire agencies
• Emergency services volunteers

Quotes attributable to Professor Jim McLennan:

"As well as presenting at scientific forums, I give presentations to community groups. One of the points I make is to emphasise the emerging problem of the expanding bushland-urban interface: new housing developments abutting bushland .

"For the majority of residents moving into these areas, bushfires are things that happen somewhere else, to someone else on television and their awareness of bushfire danger and preparedness is worryingly low."

Recent publications:

• Conceptualising and measuring householder bushfire (wildfire) risk perception (2022). https://doi.org/10.1016'j.ijdrr.2021.102667
• Conceptualising and measuring psychological preparedness for disasters (2020). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2018.09.017
• "Should we leave now?": Behavioural factors in wildfire evacuation (2018). doi:10.1007/s10694-018-0753-8

Professor Raelene Wilding
Head of Department for Social Inquiry and Deputy Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Contact: E: [email protected] P: (03) 9479 2679

Topic areas:

• Obstacles to good multilingual communications in emergencies to support the development of better solutions and responses.
• How migrants in Australia access essential emergency and health information if they speak languages other than English.

Recent research stories:

• Better ways to deliver urgent health alerts to different linguistic groups
• Improving multilingual crisis communication

Dr William Mitchell
Research Officer at the Research Centre for Future Landscapes.

Contact: E: [email protected] M: 0475 361 006

Topic areas:

• How fire affects threatened bird species in the Mallee, particularly in Victoria and South Australia
• How relatively new technology, specifically acoustic recorders, might lead to a better understanding of how this threatened bird community responds to environmental pressures like fire and drought

Professor Lauren Rickards
Professor of Climate Change Adaptation, Sociology and Director of the La Trobe Climate Change Adaptation Lab.

Contact: E: [email protected] M: 0427 679 043

Availability: overseas until late November, so email is best until then.

Topic areas:

• Climate change impacts
• Adaptations to reduce risk
• Disaster risk

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