CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS Australian Bushfire Conference, Albury, July 1999

PREFACE

Bushfire 99 is the seventh in a series of Australian Bushfire Conferences which began with the Bushfires in Heathlands Conference at the Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra in 1987.

This is the first time the Conference has been held outside the capital cities, but the original purpose of the Conference remains unchanged. That purpose is to provide a forum for the members of the fire community to discuss current research, developments and techniques in fire ecology and management.

The theme for Bushfire 99 is "Flammable Australia : the fire regimes and biodiversity of a continent". The individual chapters of the invited speakers will be published in a book of that title shortly after the Conference. Contributed papers appear in these proceedings, which, in keeping with previous custom, are available at the conference so as to allow them to be working papers.

Authors whose papers appear in these proceedings may chose to have their papers published in refereed journals without jeopardy. Speakers whose papers do not appear should be contacted directly should you wish to have further detail of their presentations.

We would like to thank the authors, who, with few exceptions, were able to have their papers to the Organising Committee in time to be included in these proceedings.

The Keynote Speaker for Bushfire 99 is Dr James Clark, an eminent palaeoecologist from Duke University, North Carolina, USA. He is one of several international visitors to Australia for the Conference, and the Organising Committee is pleased and proud to welcome all international delegates along with those from all states and territories of Australia.

The Organising Committee would like to thank our Sponsors : Australian Fire Authorities Council; CSIRO Centre for Plant Biodiversity Research; Forestry Tasmania; Johnstone Centre and School of Environmental and Information Sciences, Charles Sturt University; New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service; Parks and Wildlife Service Tasmania; and the Tasmanian Fire Service.

A special thanks is extended to the volunteers, most of whom are students and staff of the School of Environmental and Information Sciences at Charles Sturt University-Murray.

Particular thanks are due to Liz Chubb, Secretary to the Organising Committee, who has collected, collated, formatted and compiled the proceedings as well as handling all the administration of the Conference and has done so with grace.

Also due a special vote of thanks are Dr Ian Lunt who compiled the Timetable for the Conference and the abstracts for all invited and submitted papers, and Professor David Green who processed the submitted papers into a standardised format and organised for the Proceedings to be on-line at the Bushfire 99 Conference Web Address:-

http://www.csu.edu.au/special/bushfire99/

The Organising Committee wishes all delegates the very best for the Conference.

Brian Lord	Dr Malcolm Gill OAM	Dr Ross Bradstock