New project from Twiggy Forrest’s Minderoo Foundation aims to extinguish all dangerous fires within an hour

Twiggy Forrest’s Minderoo Foundation is launching an ambitious project that aims to extinguish all dangerous fires within an hour. The “Fire Shield Mission” will use cutting-edge artificial intelligence and technology from outer space to detect fires and other natural disasters like floods and report them in real-time before they get out of control. Currently, 95 per cent of fires are reported through triple zero calls, while some regions still rely on people manning watchtowers on the lookout for smoke. Minderoo Foundation chief executive Andrew Hagger said the Fire Shield Mission aimed to make Australia “the global leader in fire and flood resilience by 2025”. “Our vulnerability to fire disaster is not over,” he wrote in the Fire and Floor Resilience Blueprint released today. “Fires have happened before, and they will happen again. We can’t stop the events but we can lift our national resilience to them.” While led by Minderoo, which has committed $50 million to the initiative so far, the project encompasses 50 plus partners across government, philanthropy and corporations including nine of the top-12 ASX-listed companies. The program will target $500 million of direct and indirect investment, including in-kind contributions, from local and global partners. Research from the Australian National University found forest fires take longer to contain than grass-fires, at 762 minutes and 52 minutes respectively. WHAT PROJECT AIMS TO DO THE COST OF FIRES Climate-induced natural disasters, such as fires and floods, have over the last two decades caused more than $25 billion in damage and $100 billion in downstream economic cost. Data from the US suggests that 90 per cent of fires that were responded to in an one hour lasted an average of 14 hours, while 90 per cent of fires that were responded to after 72 hours lasted up to 47 days. For every 10 minute delay, a fire can grow by 1500m2. Australia currently spends 10 times more on response and recovery than resilience, with the cost of natural disasters expected to reach $33 billion by 2030. Minister for Industry, Science and Technology Karen Andrews — who will launch the Blueprint in Canberra today — said the project “had the potential to be a genuine game-changer for Australia”. “It highlights the power of collaboration and what can be achieved through a bold vision,” she said. “The work of the Minderoo Foundation and its partners will help Australia be more resilient after our Black Summer of bushfires.” The Minderoo Foundation predicts every dollar invested in resilience saves anywhere from $4 to $11 in response and recovery, as well as saving lives. Nearly 50 per cent of Australia’s population live in communities that have a low-to-moderate level of disaster resilience, with 33 losing their lives to the Black Summer fires. They contribute to the more than 300 lives lost to natural disasters in Australia over the past two decades. NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE PROMPTS PROGRAM The Fire and Flood Resilience initiative will be led by a man who almost died in the Black Summer fires, Adrian Turner. The former chief executive of the CSIRO’s Data61 was January preparing to fight through the night to defend his brother’s Kangaroo Valley property. Fires more than 30 metres high threatened the property, leaving the group surrounded. “The fire was so powerful it was creating its own weather system, almost like a cyclone,” he said. “We could see a massive pyrocumulus cloud, created by the intense heat, towering into the sky but before we could see any fire we could hear the wind. Mr Turner said the Royal Fire Service had to turn back, “as they should have”, returning the next day to see 60 homes burned to the ground. Mr Turner’s brothers house was one of the few still standing. But more surprising than that, was the fact all nine of those fighting the fires survived. “They (the RFS) came back the next day with nine body bags,” he said. Mr Turner said he “came away from the experience shaken, but also thinking about the lessons to be learnt on how we can be more resilient to fire and disaster in the face of a changing climate”. “I do feel like I’m living on borrowed time,” he said. He said the initiative “recognised” that climate change was real, and increasing the frequency of bushfires, and the program focussed on better response and resilience to those threats. MISSION LIKENED TO AMERICA’S MOON LANDING The Fire and Floor Resilience Blueprint likened the Fire Shield Mission to the Apollo moon mission of the 1960s. “We draw a parallel to the 1962 announcement by President John F. Kennedy that America was going to put a man on the moon inside a decade,” Mr Hagger wrote in the Blueprint. “JFK set a task to go where no-one had gone before, but at the same time the President acknowledged no-one knew how this was going to happen. “Over the course of the following years they developed the science and technology.”