CSIRO shares technology innovations and insights at the inaugural Wildfire Technology Summit

CSIRO US, Australia’s pre-eminent national science organization, announced that Dr Mahesh Prakash, Senior Principal Research Scientist, and Dr Simon Dunstall, Research Director of the Decision Sciences Program, at CSIRO’s Data61 will be speaking at the Wildfire Technology Innovation Summit on March 20 and 21, 2019 on the campus of California State University, Sacramento.

The Wildfire Technology Innovation Summit will gather thought leaders and practitioners to kick start ongoing collaboration between U.S. and international experts on strategies that would significantly reduce the risk and impact of devastating wildfires.

Dr Prakash will participate in the March 20 panel discussion titled ‘Using signals intelligence for wildfire threat detection, analysis and response’. He will share his deep expertise in developing and applying modelling and analytics techniques to urban environmental applications of emergency and disaster management to improve threat detection and response tactics.

On March 20, Dr Dunstall will lead a session titled ‘Australia: Quantifying and managing the wildfire-related to risks posed by powerlines’. He will also present on the morning of March 21 on ‘Lessons Learned from Australia’. Dr Dunstall will share the technologies and best practices Australia uses, as well as CSIRO research, on how to improve collaborations between fire agencies and local governments.

“The devastation from the 2018 California wildfire season was record-breaking with over 8,500 fires burning almost 2 million acres,” said Susan Lucas-Conwell, Executive Vice President of CSIRO US. “We are delighted to sponsor this conference and share our expertise from the wildfires in South Australia where the rough terrain and forests present similar conditions to California.”