Hello Jen,
I attach a couple of pictures of an unplanned recent fire at Scott River, Western Australia.
I don’t know the exact fuel ages before the fire, but obviously one area was much older (possibly 15 year old), and heavier littered, than the other (possibly 3 or 4 year old).
Scott River, 30th January 2007
Scott River, 30th January 2007
If you were a Noolbenger (Honey Possum, Tarsipes rostrata), which would you prefer?
Some claim that these animals would benefit from fire exclusion, from large areas, for twenty or thirty years.
I think Nyoongars (South West Aborigines) would have burnt many patches at about three years old, by lighting grasstrees.
Such fires would have trickled around, even in midsummer. They would have gone out in the late evening when the humidity rose, leaving many unburnt refuges.
Nyoongars would have had no trouble hopping, in bare feet, across burnt patches. They probably regarded Noolbengers as a tasty snack, flushed out by a mild fire – a perfect evening’s entertainment.
In recent fires in Fitzgerald River National Park, Noolbengers were running up fire fighters’ legs, and one was seen to swim fifty metres across an inlet.
Davey Gam Esq
aka Dave Ward
Western Australia
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Dave,
Thanks so much for the note with pictures. What a contrast. And I wonder what a honey possum looks like?
By-the-way, On Line Opinion has published an article by Mark Poynter this morning on forestry and fires.
Cheers, Jen
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Hi Jennifer,
See…
http://www.knowyoursto.com/images/genuspossums/tarsipes-rostratus02.jpg
Hey 🙂 davey’s 2nd photo looks familiar!
I thought this might prompt some comment too, from today’s Crikey: (Sorry for cut & paste job but it reads well. Jennifer can delete or edit if too long or inappropriate, but I don’t expect Crikey or Gellie would mind it being repeated here)..
Fire authorities fiddling while the bush burns
Nicholas Gellie is a fire ecologist and former fire manager with 25 years experience with various agencies, including the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service. He is currently completing a PhD thesis at the ANU on the topic of “Exposure of the ACT region to severe drought, fire weather and lightning ignition”. He writes:
As south eastern Australia braces itself for another day of intense bushfire activity, it’s fair to question why our fire authorities are again fearing the worst. Simply, they are unprepared.
Following the disastrous bushfires of 2003, Victorian Emergency Services Commissioner Bruce Esplin delivered a host of recommendations to the Victorian Government about fighting bushfires. The Esplin inquiry was followed by a COAG report which delivered recommendations at a federal level. Yet in December 2006, when multiple lightning strikes during a drought triggered another mega fire, fire authorities were as ill-prepared as they were four years ago.
Despite the hum of activity within government, it’s obvious that current strategies need to be comprehensively rethought. For example, backburning off containment lines has been relatively ineffective during periods of very high to extreme fire weather in controlling the fires, sometimes leading to further escapes from containment lines. Nobody is currently studying the effectiveness of this approach.
Why are we still using simplistic and antiquated fire behaviour models from the 1960s? They do not relate fully to today’s large fires, which burn with huge convection columns. Firefighters need an accurate idea of the fireground conditions. Without properly understanding what is really going on in front of them, such as the speed and intensity of the flames and in which directions they are moving, firefighters cannot be expected to react appropriately.
We need to critically evaluate the effectiveness of large helicopters, such as the Ericsson sky cranes. “Elvis” might be a cult hero, but in many situations he is ineffective when compared to smaller and more deployable helicopters.
For first attack purposes, small to medium sized helicopters equipped with buckets are more effective because you can hit the fire hard and more often. Then there’s the cost issue. One sky crane costs more than $250,000 a day, but you can have ten medium helicopters at $25,000 a day supporting fire operations. It’s a huge cost difference and nobody is doing the cost-benefit analysis. People who have lost property, national park users and taxpayers should be asking why.
What’s the solution? We need to be better prepared for such events. We need better early warning systems for predicting multiple lightning strikes during droughts and hit them hard with the most effective resources at our disposal. In the event that we cannot put the fires out while they are small, we need to deploy a range of containment strategies, beyond just backburning, to limit the extent and severity of fire in our forests. Our native wildlife, forests, property owners, farmers and livestock deserve better.
PS: I’m back as LPR suddenly exited stage left. No party loyalty these days. Apparently Phil’s condition has deteriorated and he needs 24×7 care.
What’s the solution? To understand fire I think you need to dance to its melody and hop through it like a kangaroo. Dave is getting there.
Re; OLO Mark: We don’t need a Mack truck even a Volvo to control the bush.
As I write the whole ACT is again blanketed by bushfire smoke from the high country. The ACT Media machine is full of trivia. It seems we must have a diversion at every stage.
I have been made even angrier just listening to two tired out of date men on ABC Counterpoint, Castles and Henderson.
When does it stop?
There is currently another big fire at Dwellingup, in the jarrah forest. After the last one (1961) threre was a letter in The West Australian from a Mr. P.G. Riegert, of Yarloop.
He said that “Original white settlers of many years ago told me that the natives used to patch burn the bush wherever there was enough litter to burn. The primary reason for this was to make feed for kangaroos etc. It also kept down insect and other pests without affecting bird life, making a clean bush with healthy rejuvenation and very little damage.”
I had meetings, a few years back, with Nyoongar Elders, and they said much the same. Two of them said the traditional fire interval for the jarrah forest was 2-4 years between fires. That is as often as it will carry a mild, trickling, patchy fire. Such fires would avoid refuges such as rocks or moist creek banks (are you there Bob McDonald?). Makes sense to me.
Before I retired, I encouraged staff at Dwellingup Forest Heritage Centre to burn a mosaic around the building on a 4 year rotation. They were happy to do, for safety alone. However, the effect on the bush was startling. It became noticeably greener, with more wildflowers visible. The djiridji (Macrozamia riedlii) shot up, produced cones, and fruited (byoo). Byoo nuts were important foods for Nyoongars. A Nyoongar Elder showed me other food plants that had not been seen for years, including jubok (bush potato, Leek Orchid, Praesophyllum fimbria). Not to mention the orchids and triggerplants. I think statistics would be superfluous.
Good to hear from you Gavin – I thought you had retired. Are you watching the ABC TV program called “Mississippi River Rat”? That old fella thinks like an Injun – maybe he is, partly. He knows the benefits of patchy fire too, as I am sure you do. He is an honest hunter-gatherer, not a pseudo-sentimentalist who buys meat at the supermarket. Well, that’s the impression, anyway. My wife’s eagle eye noticed a wedding ring, and she guessed not many women would care to live full-time in a log-cabin with two old, probably smelly, dogs. Perhaps there is a luxury penthouse lurking behind them thar hills. I must purge myself of cynicism – would one of those Shi’ite cat-o-nine-tails do the job?
Dave I’m watching ABC Bushfire Summer; Future on Fire at 8pm tonight.
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/guide/netw/200702/programs/NH0503V004D5022007T200000.htm
Pixie Nicks a nice bloke but not a fire fighter – backburning is about removing the fuel in front of a going fire and by its nature it is often a risky operation.But in those situations there are no other choices other than fall back further from the fire front and risk losing what ever assets are in its path. This is crux of Nicks argument he responds that there should be other containment strategies applied but he cannot identify any because there are none. In a going fire the fuel triangle is all that applies fuel, heat and oxygen – the only thing fire fighters can have effect on is the fuel by back burning it to remove it from the approaching fire front. What Nick should be concentrating on is the management decisions and stratgies in place before fires start to control fuel levels and present defendable zones to reduce fire intensity and allow containment strategies a chance to work and protect assets be they environmental or economic.
The most appropriate use of helicopters is not for water bombing but for rapid deployment of teams to lightning strikes and spot fires with sufficient gear to control them before they get out of hand.
But the fact that governments have $250,000 a day to pay for Elvis photo ops (he aint nothin but a hound dog) and are too tight to cover the out of pocket expenses of volunteers just about says it all.
abc he did some decent analysis, big on preparation but left out regular burnoffs … curious why. (we know what Ian would say). Maybe more will come out
Pixie Nicks a fire ecologist and ecologists have a particular view of the world that doesn’t always coincide with operational budgets and work program realities. Neither to they always mesh with the communities perception of risk, what are assets and legal liability in an emergency situation. Operationally lack of fuel control means lack of conatinment options to protect assets. If there is continuus heavy fuels across a landscape then under the right conditions that landscape will burn and burn to the intensity of the amount of fuel built up. If assets are to be protected then fuels need to be controlled to reduce the fire intensity this includes both environmental and economic assets. Trying to put in and hold a back burn to do this in front of a running fire can be a difficult proposition.
Good comments ABC – you seem to have actually put the wet stuff on the red stuff at some time.
Pinxi,you mentioned huge convection columns. These are, as I am sure you know, due to heavy fuel. Regular prescribed burning solves that problem, plus the long distance spotting that goes with it. It does not, of course, prevent fires that race through light fuel, such as dry grass.
There is a fashionable view among some ecologists that irregular burning on the same spot will lead to greater biodiversity. I don’t follow the logic.
Plants and animals have pretty regular life cycles – life span, age to reproduction etc. Irregular burning at any place could disadvantage them all. I think we need regular fire intervals, of different length, at different places, for different natural communities.
“Diversity” is a complex matter, and there is much glib and illogical talk. I may be as guilty as anyone. What do you think on’t? And ABC?
Diverse fire intervals on any one spot? Or a diversity of regular fire intervals at different spots?
Thanks for the Noolbenger photo Libby. Cute ain’t they? Yummy too … er … so I would imagine.
Davey,
There are some things you just don’t put in your mouth!
And thus I clothe my naked villainy with odd old ends stol’n forth of holy writ, and seem a saint when most I play the devil. But don’t we all?
Did anyone else watch the final ABC bushfire program last night? Last week there was a radio interview with a young convicted arsonist in the build up. I would rather forget the issue but –
Dave continues to ask about the frequency and pattern of bushfire suppression via fuel burn off. Let me suggest. Dave we should be asking who do we “trust” rather than why, how and when.
In Mark Poynter’s OLO thread All year round commitment the key to managing fire, a commentator says “I have never served in a brigade that did not have a fire bug in it”, and I say this is why some authorities had to crack down on prescribed burning and in many cases back-burns too. It’s all about little people, private fixes and power.
Fire authorities early on refused to believe in firebugs and over zealous leaders in their midst. A great deal of damage to the bush came directly from bad hazard reduction programs and folly within bushfire control measures. In the end it became an industry.
The “rush” is still a huge factor in the way any volunteer service but we can’t admit it can we? Let’s be bold and say it’s as widespread in volunteer organizations as people on talkback radio and blogs.
Another fact, the clean up rate for individual arson attacks is particularly poor. I expect as volunteer services tighten up on attitudes there is likely to be even more private anti social fire lighting.
In case blog readers are wondering how I can try and undermine volunteers and community motives in general, my interest in the fire fighting process goes way back to some early days in industry where we were stuck with very bad industrial relations on one hand and some insurance issues on the other. Later I freelanced in commercial fire protection in rural areas to get a better slant on a range of other issues. That meant tip toeing between local authorities and interstate agencies for quite a while. I also refer to heavy industry combustion control experience too in relation to fuels in wild fires.
Increasing evidence through observing extreme drought of global warming has changed my ideas on bushfire dramatically including our asset protection. Every property owner must quickly learn to burn outwards again. Authorities must allow for unintentional fire spills. Communities need to participate every time there is a decent window of opportunity in milder weather conditions.
Similar cool burn programs should occur in the high country using only local knowledge.
Scientists, volunteers, brigades and clubs should compete in improving our general knowledge of appropriate fire practice for reserves in any given region. Burning outwards from quality habitat must be a priority. Every operation needs to remain entirely manual in season as the major form of quality control.
Our children should be the only important custodians. Their early introduction to less dangerous bushfire is essential. Kids playing with fire in the open should never be seen arson. It can be entirely natural again.
I would say that most of us are fire bugs, fires are fascinating and winter is when we get to stare at the flames as the combustion of gases takes place, nothing better than a bed of glowing coals, lets have a BBQ who will light the fire, fires are living, they are life!