Fighting fire with science

‘Fire chaser’ Nicholas McCarthy has won a $5000 prize in a national competition for his research into fighting fires with science to protect lives and property.

McCarthy, a PhD student at the University of Queensland (UQ), won the Science Business Match Up Challenge with his project: Breathing Fire: Tracking the Meteorology of Large Bushfires.

Working closely with the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, McCarthy studies convective plumes — the intense columns of heat above bushfires.

“The study of bushfire plumes is critical to fire spread models and has direct impacts on operational bushfire management,” said McCarthy.

“Recent research conducted by the Bureau of Meteorology is examining lofting and spreading of embers in bushfire plumes. This work in Australia requires robust validation through safe field observation.”

On his Thinkable.org page, McCarthy said: “I am looking for collaborators on technological solutions to how we can best share our data in real time to the agencies that need it most. This means IT and design solutions for quick and effective communication to provide real-time meteorology situational awareness to bushfire analysts.”

McCarthy is a fire chaser, on standby for extreme bushfires along the Australian east coast, and works closely with bushfire management agencies around the country.

He uses UQ’s fully portable meteorological observation platform, known as the UQ XPOL, to make field observations.

The XPOL is a 4WD vehicle equipped with a portable Doppler radar, unmanned aerial vehicles, weather balloons, automatic weather stations and other observation equipment.

He also works with the Queensland Fire and Emergency Services, NSW Rural Fire Service, the Country Fire Authority and the ACT Emergency Services Agency.

A time lapse video below shows the intense Mt Bolton bushfire in Victoria, Australia, in February 2016, captured by McCarthy with the permission of the Country Fire Authority.

Image caption: UQ researcher Nick McCarthy has won $5000 for his bushfire project. Image courtesy of UQ.

Originally published here.