The pervasive thinking in Australia is that bush that looks like parkland is somehow better than a thicket, the problem being that there is both less biodiversity and less carbon storage. Apart from respiratory stress like asthma there is the new issue of litigation for burnoffs gone wrong. Til recently it has been a case of overgrown boys playing with matches thinking they are doing the community a favour. The prospect of involuntary manslaughter charges may soon stop that.

Perhaps we should adjust to infrequent but very hot fires using the precautions suggested. In any case as petrol prices increase the urban community may interact with the bush less and less.

I don’t think the fire-management regime is highly important amongst the enormous environmental changes that this continent has been subjected to over the last 200-odd years.

A very large amount of the country had been exposed to anthropogenic fire for tens of thousands of years and consequently was very different to how it would have been in the absence of humans. These fire practices were wiped out with the invasion of a new wave of humans. Massive changes occurred because of the reduction in fire – grassland turned into scrubland and woodland, rainforest and vine thicket replaced open forest and savannah woodlands thickened up greatly.

Contrary to the belief that the new burning practices have led to a drying out and increase in temperature, they have gone some small distance towards reducing or reversing the increased woody vegetation that grew due to a huge reduction in fire, and which would have had a net mitigating effect on temperature and an increase in moisture content and hydrological cycle.

While there are some negative factors associated with prescribed burning, they are tiny compared to the effects of massive land-clearing and grazing by cattle and rabbits.

continued

In most cases where fire management is conducted, it approaches to some extent the fire regime that existed for 40-odd thousand years. Even if it is a bit overdone in some places, it is still far less ecologically damaging than no fire management.

Of course there is another factor that necessitates fire management of bush areas – the proximity of human habitation, farmland, grazing land, etc. Quite apart from ecological or environment factors, we simply must undertake fire management to reduce the risk of the loss of life and property.

Most environments, if not subjected to prescribed fuel-reduction burning, will burn sooner or later. When this happens it can be enormously damaging both to human property and wildlife.

Prescribed burns enable a patchwork which accommodates high biodiversity. Hot burns sweep across huge tracts of country, rendering them uniform, thus greatly reducing biodiversity within those areas.

Bushfires, whether prescribed or not, are carbon-neutral in terms of greenhouse gasses.

So my conclusion Valerie is to not be negatively concerned about fire management, but rather to encourage it.

In many places it is not conducted to anywhere near a sufficient extent.

Ludwig says
<Most environments, if not subjected to prescribed fuel-reduction burning, will burn sooner or later. When this happens it can be enormously damaging both to human property and wildlife>
This is not true for most countries with similar climates to Australia. Think, why are they different?

Much of australia's land is covered by fire promoting plants; Especially the SE corner where most people live .

Sources of non-deliberate ignition are wide spread: dry lightning , power lines , and angle-grinder sparks are but a few examples. The possibility of fire in these areas can only be naturally stopped if fire is excluded long enough for ecosystems to become dominated by plants that do not need/create fire.

This would take several hundred years ,this is not a realistic hope.

Thus alternatives to fires be they deliberate or naturally started must be either modification of people i.e do not build houses in places like Mountain Ash forests and on NW facing slopes generally and/or artificial modification of ecosystems I.e replacing Sclerophyll vegetation with non fire promoting plants in areas close to habitation and/or largely removing vegetation from near areas of human habitation.

Oddly enough, though there is of course no evidence for anthropogenic climate change, I do believe that increased CO2 levels may be encouraging plant growth, in Australia as elsewhere. And although this is good news for farmers and wildlife it may not be so good for those of us who live in bushfire-prone areas. My own region is heavily overgrown compared to when I moved here twenty years ago. At some point all that extra growth is going to burn, and nothing on Heaven or Earth is going to stop it.

I would gladly vote for a yearly burn-off regime, but without support from the general population it's just not going to happen. Maybe after enough people die that support will appear. Meanwhile I plan to make sure I'm not here when the holocaust hits.

Fire is a normal part of nature, lightening is the match.
If we don't have controlled burns, nature will have uncontrolled burns.

<< This is not true for most countries with similar climates to Australia >>

Really, ozideas?

Fire is also a big factor in many somewhat similar vegetation types in North America, Europe and elsewhere.

Anyway, what does it matter what happens overseas?

In Australia it is very much the case that most environments if not subjected to prescribed fuel-reduction burning will burn sooner or later. In fact, the only vegetation types that don’t burn at all are full-on rainforest without sclerophyll emergents (such as eucalypts), vine thicket / softwood scrub / dry rainforest of low rainfall areas, again without sclerophyll species, mangroves, samphire flats and some permanent wetlands. The vast array of forest, woodland, arid scrubland, heathland, and grassland vegetation types that cover >99% of the continent all burn like blazes!!

If you wanted to promote Australian vegetation types that don’t burn in place of those that do, you would have to introduce entirely different ecosystems with a completely or very largely different suite of plant and animal species… and do it on a phenomenally massive scale.

Good on you Ludwig, you have explained the situation very well.

Aus is a unique environment, with many varied ecosystems established progressively over many tens of thousands, if not millions, of years of Earth (and Aus) history, and each of these ecosystems requires a specific approach to its preservation. To contemplate reconstructing our ecosystems to some other model simply goes against nature, would be a massive undertaking, as Ludwig has said, and would not only be futile, but would lead to the loss of everything that is unique in our environment - not only to us, but to the world.

In high-density urban areas, planning to minimise fire risk may include use of whatever fire-resistant non-invasive plant species you may desire, but in the bush all introduced plant species are a weed, a menace, and a threat to native flora and fauna and the ecosystem as a whole. It is hard enough to preserve 'nature' against the impacts of human encroachment and interference without the addition of invasive pest species. There have been enough mistakes already, with the introduction of Pink Lantana, Scottish Broom and Blackberries, etc, and rabbits, foxes and Cane Toads, plus various bird and insect species.

The purpose of wildfire mitigation is to reduce risk, to people, property and the environment - through clearing of fire-breaks and through fuel reduction. Where possible, slashing, mulching or even tilling may be utilised to reduce fuel load, but in the bush strategic burning is the only tool available, and it is used in appropriate conditions to reduce ground-cover fuel load - so that over-storey is preserved intact (as far as possible). The reality is however that in extreme weather conditions even the prior reduction of ground-cover fuel-load may not always be sufficient to prevent a forest fire enveloping the upper storey - producing a crown fire or firestorm. In the latter case only aerial bombardment, fire-break bulldozing, back-burning, and evacuation are feasible to effect containment of impacts. Crown fires and firestorms are exceedingly destructive and dangerous (to firefighters, evacuees, etc) - hence the need for mitigation, including hazard-reduction burning.

Yes Saltpetre, there certainly is a great need for fire mitigation, but we need to be careful that it doesn’t give us a false sense of security.

This can certainly happen in big eucalypt forest where firestorms can occur. Removal of fuel from the lower layers may help prevent a fire from starting, but if it does start, via lightning or whatever, when it is very hot, dry and windy, then it can whip through the canopy at great speed and intensity regardless of what is in the mid stratum or ground stratum..

Much of southeastern and southwestern Australia is precariously prone to firestorm events, and there is not a lot that can be done to absolutely prevent it by way of fuel-reduction controlled burning.

We just shouldn’t be building houses and the like in forested areas where the trees have volatile oils in their leaves!

Fire hazard reduction is much more reliable in most other vegetation types, where controlled burns burn all the vegetation and don’t leave the canopy unburnt or where the trees are well-spaced so that a crown fire can’t occur, or where the trees simply don’t have leaves full of volatile oils.

Ludwig,

I agree. Mitigation protocols are of course supposed to restrict the incidence of construction and human habitation in areas prone to high risk, but, human psyche being as it is, many are drawn to the romance of the bush, and want to live right in there. And Councils are not always able to prevent them - to protect people from themselves. I live in a rural setting, and wouldn't want to live anywhere else, so I can't blame anyone else for wanting the same, but I also have to take adequate precaution to minimise the associated risks. We are a fire and flood prone continent.

Regarding firefighting, I have noted from media coverage of Black Saturday that the Victorian CFA did not appear to be very well equipped - certainly not in comparison with the NSW RFS (our better provisions may be due to Bob Carr). WA Fire Services may also be somewhat lacking, though I'm not sure of this.

In view of the inevitability of bush fires it would be very helpful if all of the nation's rural fire services were equipped in a manner commensurate with the job. I hate seeing any firefighters placed at risk because of poor equipment and/or a shortage of good quality equipment. We may be well off in NSW in this regard, but to me it is an indictment of other State governments if they don't follow suit.

Construction in risk areas should of course be designed to suit - including as regards materials and design, communications and firefighting facilities, safety refuges, and evacuation routes. A wish and a prayer doesn't cut it.

Hello ozideas. I have been reliably informed that you are Valerie Yule.

I have enjoyed your articles on OLO and consider you to be one of the best article contributors on this forum. I passionately share your concerns about population growth, sustainability and all manner of environmental issues.

The current issue about fire management is perhaps the first time I have found a bit of disagreement with you. I would love to discuss it further, here on thus thread, if you wish.

Cheers.

Why didn't you start this with "wouldn't it be nice if" This writer lives in a world of faity tales with happy endings.

Like so many greenies and the PC brigade, they refuce to accept the truth because accepting the truth has so many un-palatable consequences.

Wake up and smell the roses, love.

Now let me get this straight. After 40,000 years of firestick farming and the evolution of species and populations to match, Yule would like us to believe that a partial resumption of that fire regime after a single interupted century will 'dry us out' and reduce fertility?

Lets be clear, the absence of cold fire and the increase in hot fires has produced a substantial increase in the density of forested vegetation which has substantially degraded the volume and duration of river flows.

So Lance, what can you tell me about Aboriginal "fire regimes"? What do you know about it?