1. In the beginning ... The nature of fire Just how widespread are forest fires? 2. Historical review The earliest beginnings of fire in geological time Tertiary and quaternary: the last 65 million years Holocene: the last 10,000 years The intervention of humans Uses of fire Control of fire: careful or careless? Effect of aboriginal people on the landscape Arrival of the Europeans Bambi and Smokey Bear Reduced fire frequencies Fire control to fire management Are fire frequencies increasing again?
3. How a fire burns Mechanics of fire Pre-ignition Ignition Combustion Heat transfer Variation in fuel quality Temperature and energy Anatomy of a fire Types of fire Dynamics of extreme fires Scales of fire impact: smoke
4. Fire in the wild landscape Causes of wildfire: how do they start? Which starts most fires? Which burns most area? The fire behavior triangle Fuel considerations: fires are what they consume The effect of climate and weather Fire season Variability in how a fire spreads The complexity of fire spread Patterns / mosaics on the landscape Patterns of fire over time Reconstructing fire history Fire size: how big is big?
5. Fire ecology How plants survive a surface fire Fire stimulation of flowering Ground fires and plant survival How plants cope with a crown fire Sneaking past: invasion after a fire Bacteria and fungi Animals and fire Post-fire recovery of plants and animals
6. The benefits of fire and its use as a landscape tool / with Peter Hobson Fire and biodiversity: an overview Unpicking the factors that affect biodiversity Environmental legacies: dead wood and biodiversity Fire, forests and conservation Can clear-cutting replace fire? The future for fire-prone forests: environmental uncertainty, macroecology and ecosystem resilience Fire as a management tool in the landscape Fire and soils The wildland-urban interface (WUI) The role of prescribed burning in wildland-urban interface areas
7. Fire suppression Preliminary steps: fire intelligence Fire detection Dispatch Resources for fire suppression Suppression Suppression failure: large fire management Fatality fires The fire-management organisation
8. Wildland fire and its management - a look towards the future / Kelvin Kirsch
The future: ours for the making.
