Fire prevention treatments to mitigate wildfire risk

Wildfires can have devastating impacts on life, property and the environment. Increasingly people are living in areas that place them at risk from wildfires. Fire management agencies use a range of strategies to reduce wildfire risk. The aim of this thesis was to investigate the effectiveness of fire prevention and response treatments to mitigate wildfire risk in southeastern Australia. This was achieved by (i) investigating the drivers of ignitions and the relationship between social and biophysical variables on the probability of ignition; (ii) determining if ignitions are equal or whether some ignition causes pose more risk than others; (iii) investigating the factors that influence the containment of wildfires; and (iv) determining the relative effectiveness of mitigation and response strategies to mitigate the risk of house losses.