Wildland–urban interface (WUI) fires have caused catastrophic house losses worldwide, from Australia’s Black Summer to the 2025 Los Angeles fires. However, existing fire risk models remain largely empirical and static, with limited ability to link fire behaviour across scales. In addition, there is currently no WUI fire behaviour model specifically developed for Australia. This study aims to develop a dynamic, multi-scale fire risk modelling framework to predict the evolution of fire spread and house loss during WUI fire events. It first develops a vegetation firebrand generation model tailored to Australian WUI fuels using experimental data, then develops a coupled framework that integrates three primary ignition mechanisms – direct flame contact, thermal radiation and firebrands – to capture the complex processes driving structure ignition and loss across multiple spatial scales, and finally validates the framework against representative Australian WUI fire case studies. By resolving how fire propagates through communities over time, it aims to support early warning, evacuation planning, and targeted protection of vulnerable structures, contributing to more fire-resilient WUI communities. Photo source: IQAir.
Project timeline: 12/2025 – 12/2029