In this presentation Justin Leonard of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) advocates that we accept fire as an inevitable process and an integral part of our landscape and that we build our houses and backyards to embrace this fact. Presentation from Nature Conservation Council of NSW 2017 Bushfire Conference - Fire, Fauna & Ferals: from backyards to bush.

1. Community Adaptation
Justin Leonard – CSIRO Research Leader
Bushfire Urban Design

2. My Background
• My 24 year research career has mainly focused understanding
Bushfire from the perspective of a house & its occupants.
• Supporting and using a scientific evidence base to inform building
and landscaping regulations and advice.
• Understanding how people perceive and behave in a Bushfire
event.

3. I have a confession.
• I have spent the vast majority of my research career supporting
and enhancing a system that is destined to fail.
• A system that is predicated on the idea that we fear and suppress
all unplanned fire.
• Then if the weather becomes too severe we evacuate and face
the prospect of our house and belongings going up in smoke
• But it's ok..... it's not really likely to happen to me.

4. What is Community Adaptation?
Acknowledging that bushfire is an inevitable
& welcome part of our landscape

5. What does it look like?
• House that can't burn down.
• Gardens that need fire to be at their best.
• Fences that are not affected by fire and allow it to pass unhindered.
• Sheds that are sealed from the elements including fire.
• Cars that filter out smoke and can see through it.
• Broader landscapes that are shaped by our use of fire.
• Fire that is initiated and managed by the local communities.

6. What have we been missing?
• We focus on fire exclusion not inclusion.
• Fire is the domain of the experts or practitioners not Community.
• Regulation is not the path to adaptation… but it offer little impediment.
• The confidence to design and build houses in bushfire prone areas
that don’t burn down.
• Agencies are blamed for not burning enough and for not putting them
out well enough. It would need a fire agency the size of the
community for that task!

7. We don't need a fire expert to:
• Describe what a non-combustible material is.
• Identify a greater than 2mm gap.
• Recognise that a car represents a substantial fuel load.
• Recognise a bushland interface that we can no longer walk through.

8. We do need experts to:
• Teach us how to read and reengage with the land.
• Convince the authorities to give fire back to the community.
• Teach us the old (indigenous) ways of using fire as a tool in the
landscape.
• To provide confidence and evidence to support this transition.

9. How do we know when have it?
When your neighbour rings you to mention
that a bushfire has past today...... and it gives
you a nice grin.

10. And, if we don't adapt.........
Then Nature will do it for us.
Climate change forecasts indicating major
increases in the frequent of problematic fire
weather.
Both our houses and our forests are at risk from
this change in frequency
The challenge is to proactively adapt.