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Wildfires: Australia needs national monitoring agency

Comprehensive fire surveillance will strengthen resilience and adaptation to climate change.
  1. David Bowman

    1. David Bowman is the professor of pyrogeography and fire science in the School of Natural Sciences at the University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia.

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  2. Grant Williamson

    1. Grant Williamson is a senior research fellow in the School of Natural Sciences at the University of Tasmania, Australia.

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  3. Marta Yebra

    1. Marta Yebra is a senior lecturer in environment and engineering at the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.

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  4. Joshua Lizundia-Loiola

    1. Joshua Lizundia-Loiola is a graduate researcher in the Department of Geology, Geography and the Environment, University of Alcala, Spain.

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  5. Maria Lucrecia Pettinari

    1. Maria Lucrecia Pettinari is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Geology, Geography and the Environment, University of Alcala, Spain.

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  6. Sami Shah

    1. Sami Shah is a PhD candidate at the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.

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  7. Ross Bradstock

    1. Ross Bradstock is a professor and director of the Centre for Environmental Risk Management of Bushfires, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia.

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  8. Emilio Chuvieco

    1. Emilio Chuvieco is a professor of geography in the Department of Geology, Geography and The Environment, University of Alcala, Spain.

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Fire and Rescue personnel run towards a fire truck as a bushfire burns next to a major road

Fire-and-rescue crew attend a blaze in Sydney, Australia, in 2019. Credit: David Gray/Getty

Just before the COVID-19 pandemic, bush fires in Australia destroyed more than 3,000 homes and burnt millions of hectares of vegetation. The crisis exposed the nation’s fire monitoring system as being unfit for purpose. Precise real-time information about the area burnt and the intensity of the fires was not available when it was needed.

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Nature 584, 188-191 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02306-4

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