AFAC and CFA webinar: The limits of suppression: What we’ve learnt from 5 years of bush and grass fire suppression research in Victoria
Since 2021, the Country Fire Authority (CFA) and Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA) have been researching suppression effectiveness in grass and bushfires. This webinar explores the key learnings from this research, which found discrepancies between the way suppression occurs on the fireground and how it is represented in research and modelling.
Date: Wednesday, 17 June 2026
Time: 1.00pm-2.00pm AEST
Register for the free webinar here.
The limits of suppression: What we’ve learnt from 5 years of bush and grass fire suppression research in Victoria
Since 2021, CFA and DEECA have been researching suppression effectiveness in grass and bushfires. This webinar explores the key learnings from this research, which found discrepancies between the way suppression occurs on the fireground and how it is represented in research and modelling.
The webinar will showcase different frameworks that address some of these realities, including methods to separate spreading from non-spreading fire reports, a categorisation of the sensitivity of fires to initial attack resourcing, the concept of short-fuse fires, and suppression pre-planning analytics.
The findings of this research shows that rapid initial attack is necessary, but not sufficient to prevent impacts from wildfires. Understanding the limitations of suppression requires narrowing the gap between 'work as imagined’ and 'work as done’, as much as it requires better data, models and methods.
Guest speakers:
Kristy Butler
Lead Data Scientist, CFA
Kristy is a Lead Data Scientist at CFA in the Research and Development team. After graduating with engineering and geography degrees, Kristy spent 5 years working as a consultant transport planner and data analyst, developing analysis workflows to solve logistics and transport problems for governments and private companies. She now works to generate insights about Victoria's bushfire suppression activities, through a combination of field and data science techniques.
Dr Nick McCarthy
Senior Research and Development Officer, CFA
Nick is a Senior Research and Development Officer with CFA’s Research and Development team in Victoria, Australia. His research focuses are on suppression effectiveness, future firefighting trends, and field data collection on fire behaviour. He previously worked as a postdoc with the US Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station in Missoula Montana and completed a PhD at the University of Queensland in fire-atmosphere interactions.