Tasmanian scientists participate in NASA bushfire study

Tasmanian scientists participate in NASA bushfire study

14 April 2010

published by www.abc.net.au

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Australia —    Tasmanian scientists are to take part in a NASA study of giant bushfires across three contintents.

Professor David Bowman, from the School of Plant Science at the University of Tasmania, will lead Australia’s involvement in the research, which will study fire behaviour in south-eastern Australia, the Amazon in Brazil, and in western United States.

David Bowman says NASA wants to develop practical ways to manage increasingly large fires.

“In the US, they are averaging now between one billion and one and a half billion (dollars) on fire suppression, US Forest Service, per year,” he says.

“Clearly, economies can’t take that sort of fiscal loading. We have to do something better, we have to do something different.”

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