International Journal of Wildland Fire (IJWF) Outstanding Associate Editor Award 2016 – Geoff Cary
Dr. Geoff Cary is the receipient of the Outstanding Editor Award of the International Journal of Wildland Fire for 2016. Please join us in congratulating Geoff for his many years of excellent service to the journal, both as an Associate Editor (since 2002) and as a member of the Editorial Advisory Committee (since 2009).
Geoff is Associate Professor in wildland fire (bushfire) science in the Fenner School of Environment and Society at the Australian National University (ANU). He has held this position since 1996, previously as Lecturer and Senior Lecturer. Geoff was awarded a Bachelor of Applied Science (Environmental Biology) (Honours) from the University of Technology, Sydney, and a PhD in the topic of landscape fire modelling from ANU.
Geoff’s research interests include: evaluating fire management and climate change impacts on fire regimes using landscape-scale simulation; ecological investigation of interactions between fire and biota from genes to communities; empirical analysis of house loss in wildland fire; and laboratory experimentation of fire behaviour. Geoff co-leads, with Dr Bob Keane (US Forest Service) and Professor Mike Flannigan (University of Alberta), an international group of landscape-scale wildland fire simulation modellers. He gave a keynote address on the effect of fuel treatment on house loss in wildfires at the Wildland Fire Canada Conference (Kananaskis, Canada) in 2012, and has given invited conference and lecture presentations in China, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, UK, USA and Australia. He has been awarded research funding from the Australian Research Council, the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre, and the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre.
Geoff specialises in teaching bushfire dynamics and management at ANU, including convening ‘Fire in the Environment’, co-convening ‘Weather, Climate and Fire’, and contributing to a range of other courses. Geoff supervises honours and graduate scholars investigating diverse wildland fire topics including post-fire dynamics of plant and bird communities, political and cultural history of Indigenous burning in Australia, and a wide range of bushfire simulation topics. He has received an ANU ‘Top Supervisor’ award and an ANU College Supervision Award.
As mentioned, Geoff has been a member of the Editorial Advisory Committee since 2009, and an Associate Editor since 2002, of the International Journal of Wildland Fire, and a member of the International Association of Wildland Fire since 2002. He has served on the NSW Parks and Wildlife Advisory Council and the Federal Science Minister’s Bushfire Research Advisory Group. He managed the PhD and MPhil program in the Fenner School, ANU, as Associate Director for Higher Degree Research in 2010 and 2011.
We are pleased to add the 2016 IJWF Outstanding Editor Award to his impressive list of achievements, and we thank him most sincerely for his exceptional service to the International Journal of Wildland Fire.
International Journal of Wildland Fire – Volume 26(3) 2017
IAWF members have free online access to all research articles and back issues, a great member benefit. The IAWF member page directs you to the Journal, where you can search for your paper, author or fire subject of interest. All papers that have been accepted, even those not yet published in hard copy, can be found on the site.
The third issue of the International Journal of Wildland Fire in 2017 contains the following papers:
Variability and drivers of extreme fire weather in fire-prone areas of south-eastern Australia. Sarah Harris, Graham Mills and Timothy Brown.
We identify the most extreme fire weather days based on McArthur’s Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI) for 24 sites across south-eastern Australia for potential use in fire risk planning. The extent and variability of these highest FFDI days are analysed by the contributions of temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, wind direction and drought indices
Hillslope-scale prediction of terrain and forest canopy effects on temperature and near-surface soil moisture deficit. Sean F. Walsh, Petter Nyman, Gary J. Sheridan, Craig C. Baillie, Kevin G. Tolhurst and Thomas J. Duff.
Fire managers often use a drought index at coarse spatial resolution to determine soil moisture status in flammable forests. In complex terrain, there is a fine-scale mosaic of near-surface soil moisture deficit that may create important constraints on prescribed burning operations. A simple method is proposed for predicting this pattern
Spatial distribution of grassland fires at the regional scale based on the MODIS active fire products. Zhengxiang Zhang, Zhiqiang Feng, Hongyan Zhang, Jianjun Zhao, Shan Yu and Wala Du.
This study used kernel density estimation to analyse the spatial pattern of grassland fires based on the MODIS active fire product and to define grassland fire risk zones. The results show that the kernel density estimation method can be applied to analyse the spatial distribution of grassland fires.
**Editor-choice open access paper** : Spatially varying constraints of human-caused fire occurrence in British Columbia, Canada. Philip E. Camp and Meg A. Krawchuk.
The relative importance of different drivers of human-caused fire can vary based on levels of human footprint and biophysical characteristics of a study region. We show that human-caused fire occurrence in areas with substantial human footprint are controlled by a different set of variables than in remote areas.
Evaluation of the spectral characteristics of five hyperspectral and multispectral sensors for soil organic carbon estimation in burned areas. Juanjo Peón, Susana Fernández, Carmen Recondo and Javier F. Calleja.
The spectral characteristics of five hyperspectral and multispectral sensors were evaluated for topsoil organic carbon prediction in burned areas. The spectral resolution of both sensors was suitable for prediction. The most relevant spectral regions for topsoil carbon estimation were the visible and short-wave infrared.
Forest fire danger, life satisfaction and feelings of safety: evidence from Australia. Christopher L. Ambrey, Christopher M. Fleming and Matthew Manning.
Forest fire danger is negatively associated with an individual’s life satisfaction and with an individual’s feelings of safety. Feelings of safety largely explain the association between forest fire danger and life satisfaction. We find that individuals are willing-to-pay $10 to avoid a one unit increase in forest fire danger.
Homage to L. M. Coutinho: fire adaptations in cerrado plants. Juli G. Pausas.
Professor Coutinho (1934–2016; Sao Paulo, Brazil) studied fire adaptations in Brazilian savannas during the 1970s, when very few researchers recognised fire as an evolutionary force. His main contributions were on fire-stimulated flowering, serotiny and nutrient cycling. However, he is little known, partly because he was not Anglo-Saxon but also because he was ahead of his time, when fire and evolution were still distant concepts
