Bushfire Interface Science

This subject is not offered in 2014.

100 - 120 hours

For the purposes of considering request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Cwth 2005), and Student Support and Engagement Policy, academic requirements for this subject are articulated in the Subject Overview, Learning Outcomes, Assessment and Generic Skills sections of this entry.

It is University policy to take all reasonable steps to minimise the impact of disability upon academic study, and reasonable adjustments will be made to enhance a student's participation in the University's programs. Students who feel their disability may impact on meeting the requirements of this subject are encouraged to discuss this matter with a Faculty Student Adviser and Student Equity and Disability Support: http://services.unimelb.edu.au/disability

This subject adopts an evidence-based approach to understanding house loss in bushfires. This knowledge is the basis for the delivery of alternative solutions and performance-based building and planning solutions for bushfire risk mitigation.

Bushfire Interface Science requires some critical background knowledge in order to be effectively delivered, the key pre-requisites are the successful completion of the building planning stream of the Postgraduate Certificate in Bushfire Planning and Management.

By the end of the subject students should:

• Have an understanding of how to quantify fire weather and its influence on both fire arrival severity and urban interface vulnerability;
• Fire progression & behaviour (advanced understanding);
• Have an understanding of how to quantify fire progression and behaviour as it transitions from continuous fuels into the urban interface;
• Have an understanding of how to quantify the various mechanisms implicit in a bushfire event and also recognise synergistic influences they have in the built form;
• Have a firm grounding in the historic evidence of building loss and the urban design and building system contexts that influenced these losses;
• Have an understanding of human behaviour in a fire environment and understand the process of decision-making, occupant response and the physiological and psychological effects of fire;
• Be able to consider the above fundamentals within a risk-based framework;
• Be introduced to the approaches taken in advanced risk mapping and in various settlement patterns.

• Literature review (1500 words) due prior to commencement of intensive (30%)
• Assignment on quantification techniques for interface exposure (1500 words) due at completion of intensive (30%)
• Major written assignment on risk assessment (2000) due 3 weeks after completion of intensive (40%)

This subject is not available as a breadth subject.