NSW to launch $16m Bushfire Commercialisation Fund to spur firefighting innovation

Large sums of money have been promised to people with fresh ideas on how to prevent the next Black Summer.

The NSW government hopes to inspire innovation which can prevent another Black Summer by promising research grants of up to $8 million each.

The plan is to award the grants, worth a total of $16 million, to people, businesses or universities with fresh ideas on how to prepare for and respond to future bushfires.

“Whether it’s artificial intelligence, drones or predictive mapping, we need to commercialise disaster-resilient practical solutions, not just in NSW, but across Australia and around the world,” Innovation Minister Alister Henskens said in a statement.

The Black Summer bushfires devastated large parts of NSW in 2019 and 2020.

“By investing in our homegrown talent and their innovative research, we can help grow the economy, create jobs and develop products that secure a brighter future for NSW.”

The grants will range from $200,000 to $8 million, and the program is meant to go on for three years.

“By better understanding fires and enhancing the firefighting capability of frontline personnel, we are able to minimise their impact on the community and save lives,” Emergency Services Minister Steph Cooke said.

Innovation Minister Alister Henskens said he hoped new bushfire-fighting products could be developed. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Nikki Short

Emergency Services Minister Steph Cooke said innovation could save lives. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Nikki Short

The launch of the Bushfire Commercialisation Fund comes in response to one of the recommendations from the NSW Bushfire Inquiry, which was commissioned in January 2020 and completed six months later.

It made 76 recommendations to the government, including one that said NSW should become “a major world centre of bush fire research”.

Part of that recommendation was to establish a fund “to assist with the rapid development of technologies and services to sense, fight, mop up after and protect from bush fires”.

NSW chief scientist and engineer Hugh Durrant-Whyte said the new fund was modelled on two existing ones, the Medical Devices Fund and the Physical Sciences Fund.

“Both have helped to scale businesses, attract investment from private capital and build the capability of NSW’s small-to-medium enterprises in key industry sectors,” he said.