Lightning storms earlier this week started a number of fires in the high country, including one in the Buckland valley, Tawonga South, and on the Old Coach road between Mt Hotham and Harrietville. Parts of this area has been burnt three times in a little more than 10 years, with huge impacts on the alpine ash forests of the upper Ovens Valley and surrounding watersheds.
The Victorian government has announced changes to how fuel reduction burns (‘controlled burning’) will be carried out in the state.
Since the Black Saturday fires of 2009, public land managers have been seeking to burn 5% of public land each year. This has been criticised for being a very blunt management instrument for a complex problem. There are concerns that burning regimes have been inappropriate for some types of vegetation, causing ecological damage, and have not been able to reduce overall fire risk in the state.
Continue reading “New system for fuel reduction burns in Victoria”
Fuel reduction (also called controlled burning) is a key tool used by land managers to reduce the intensity of fires when they do occur. Its a simple theory: do a controlled, ‘cool’ burn through an area to reduce the amount of fuel on the forest floor.
In Victoria, there is an annual target, whereby public authorities need to try and burn 5% of public land each year. This has lead to widespread criticism that Parks are burning areas a long way from ‘assets’ (house, farms, etc). In effect, it seems that the target has become political rather than about reducing fire risk. There is also evidence that some fire regimes being imposed on some landscapes may be causing ecological harm or even potentially increasing fuel loads through changing vegetation structure.
Continue reading “Fuel reduction of limited value in reducing fire risk”
People who visit the Australian high country know how badly it has been impacted by bushfires over the past decade.
In Victoria, we experienced the Eastern Alps fire of 2003, which burnt 1.3 million hectares, and also in 2006/07 which burnt almost 1.3 million hectares. Then over the summer of 2012/13, the Aberfeldy-Donnellys Creek and Harrietville fires also burnt large areas of the mountains. Some sections have been burnt three times in a decade, with loss of significant stands of Alpine Ash and snow gums.
I have often wondered what the fire impact might mean in terms of snow cover. Obviously where there is the classic open canopy of a mature snow gum woodland, at least half the ground is at least partially shaded from direct sunlight. Often snow will stay in better condition under the trees when its getting sun affected in the open areas. And equally you will often get snow lingering in the forests once it is mostly burnt off in adjacent treeless areas.
Victoria’s forest firefighters who are employed by the Department of Environment, Land, Water & Planning (DELWP) are fighting for fair pay and recognition as genuine emergency services workers.
The following information comes from the Australian Workers Union.
Approximately 95% of the bushfires that occur across Victoria take place on public land, where forest firefighters are the first to respond. Apart from responding to many of these fires, DELWP firefighters are also expected to perform a range of highly skilled duties in public assistance areas such as missing person searches, pest control, biosecurity incursions, marine pollution management, flood and heatwave, mine rescues and disruption to water or energy supplies.
So far, the fire season has not seen any large fires in the high country. Let’s hope it stays that way! There has been one small one on the Bogong High Plains and the Mt Selwyn area. Dry lightening strikes have been problematic on a number of occasions.
The following report (Jan 8) comes from The Gippsland Times.
Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning fire crews are responding to two fires about three to five kilometres north-east of Licola and a small fire the Alpine National Park about 28km north-west of Dargo.
As of Thursday morning, the fires were each about 0.5 hectares in size.
DELWP fire crews also responding to There was no threat to communities.
Smoke may be visible from nearby communities and roads.
You can find details on current fires via the CFA website.
WEDNESDAY 21st MAY 2014, 530 to 700 PM
Hoogenraad Auditorium, La Trobe Institute for Molecular Sciences
LA TROBE UNIVERSITY, Bundoora Campus
Hosted by the Research Centre for Applied Alpine Ecology, La Trobe University
This Symposium will showcase how science answers questions about a current, highly topical management issue in the Australian Alps – the effects of livestock grazing on fire regimes of the Australian High Country. The guest speakers will address globally important topics such as the evolution of Australia as a flammable continent, how weather and fuels determine fire regimes, fire-grazing interactions, and approaches to assessing the effectiveness of various fire management options, including alpine grazing. This is a public forum about an important land management issue, and there will be ample time for questions and discussion at the conclusion of the talks. The Symposium will be followed by drinks and nibbles.
This Symposium is a must for anyone with an interest in the ecology and management of the Australian Alps. Enquiries and reservations: femaa2014@gmail.com
Places are limited. RSVP: 15th May 2014
There is no doubt that our fire seasons are getting longer and more intense. Here in the south east, in terms of massive fires (greater than 250,000 ha), Victoria experienced two such events in the 19th century and five in the 20th century. In less than two decades, we have already had three mega fires in the 21st century. Many alpine areas have been burnt three times in the space of a decade.
There is no coherent overall response as yet by state or federal governments that outlines how we should respond to the growing interaction of climate change and wildfire. Sadly, our Prime Minister is in denial, having claimed that since ‘fires have always been part of our landscape’ there is no link to climate change. The Victorian state government has been challenged on the lack of attention to climate change in it’s approach to managing fire risk. Reducing fire risk is therefore about reducing fuel load and getting larger equipment , not about reducing greenhouse gas emissions or accepting that enhanced fire risk is the new reality for much of the country.
The following report, from Grist, outlines a different approach. The US government has released a strategy that aims to respond to the changing nature of fire threats. One aspect that especially interested me is the fact that it includes an approach that aims to ‘restore and maintain landscapes that are resilient to fire.’ In Victoria, we seem to be doing the opposite. There is a politically driven target that dictates that 5% of the state will receive fuel reduction treatment each year. This is in spite of the fact that some vegetation types don’t need burning to maintain ecological health, and others can become more flammable with the wrong fuel reduction approaches, and others are directly threatened by too much fire.
Climate change just reshaped America’s wildfire strategy
Like a tree in a greenhouse, America’s forest fire problem is growing ominously. Rising temperatures and declining rain and snowfall are parching fire-prone areas and juicing conflagrations. On Thursday, following years of meetings and scientific reviews, the Obama administration published a 101-page strategy that aims to help meet the country’s shifting fire threats.
The National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy divides the nation according to fire risks, and profiles the communities that face those risks. “No one-size-fits-all approach exists to address the challenges facing the Nation,” the strategy states.
Despite covering 70,000 communities and 46 million homes, the strategy can be boiled down to guidelines that aim to do three main things: restore and maintain landscapes that are resilient to fire; brace communities and infrastructure for occasional blazes; and help officials make wise decisions about how and whether flames should be doused. Here’s what that all looks like in flowchart form:
“As climate change spurs extended droughts and longer fire seasons, this collaborative wildfire blueprint will help us restore forests and rangelands to make communities less vulnerable,” said Mike Boots, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
With bushfire season still in full force, the kindest thing that can be said about the Victorian Government order to the community of Woods Point that they abandon their fire refuge is that it is very badly timed.
Woods Point is one of the most isolated towns in the state, in a valley in the Victorian high country. Long sections of heavily forested country must be traversed if people are to leave in the case of fire threat and the need for a community refuge is both obvious and necessary.
The following report comes from The Weekly Times, written by Chris McLennan.
Fury as Woods Point bushfire refuge deemed illegal
A SMALL Victorian town will defy a Victorian Government order to abandon their fire refuge.
Woods Point residents rely on the old gold mine tunnel which has saved the town’s population once before.
Despite the tunnel being the state’s only officially recognised fire refuge for years, new rules governing the construction of refuges have seen the government and local council in the last few weeks refuse to accept legal liability for the structure.
Signs nominating the tunnel as a fire refuge are to be removed and residents fear a gate on the entrance will be padlocked.
”Do they want us to die?” member of the town’s safety committee, Margaret Martyn said.
Fire Services Commissioner Craig Lapsley yesterday said the tunnel, known locally as the adit, did not meet the new building requirements to be a community fire refuge.
The Country Fire Authority yesterday began an assessment of the tunnel hoping to reclassify it as a “Neighbourhood Safer Place” but the question of legal liability remains.
Mr Lapsley said the CFA, Victoria Police and the Fire Services Commissioner would continue to work with Mansfield Shire Council to resolve the issue.
He said before the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires, there was an adhoc and inconsistent approach to the designation of community fire refuges.
You can read the full story here.
Snow gums are the quintessential alpine tree on mainland Australia, generally growing at heights between 1,300 and 1,800 metres asl. Forests and woodlands of Eucalyptus pauciflora can look quite uniform from a distance, but up close they have such character.
But wildfire has been devastating large swathes of snow gum habitat, with significant fires in the Victorian High Country in 1998, 2002/3, 2006/7 and 2013 and in the Snowy Mountains in 2003.
Research is showing that if we want to allow snow gum forests the chance to recover from these fires, we need to keep the cattle out and do our best to stop any future fire activity.
This story available here.
Most fires in the mountains (so far) have been in the foothills (see news item below from The Gippsland Times) or East Gippsland. However the CFA is now reporting fire activity in various locations in the high country.
There is a fire roughly 20km NNE of Benambra Township and the high ridge country near Mt Matlock. Check the CFA site for details.
As of friday morning, Jan 17, the CFA is reporting that
Firefighters are responding to a fire in the TAMBORITHA-CAREY RIVER area 15kms NE of Licola.
UPDATE ON TAMBORITHA FIRE, Jan 22
Fire is still going, now 150 ha in size, and the regions identified below are still closed.
UPDATE JAN 19
The fire is currently 120 hectares in size.
The Lake Tarli Karng walking track network is closed. Visitors should also stay away from tracks north of the Avon Wilderness area and the Mount Wellington to Millers Hut 4WD area.
JAN 17 NOTE ON TAMBORITHA FIRE:
Campers and walkers in the Carey River catchment, north of the Avon Wilderness Park, the Lake Tarli Karng track network and the Mount Wellington to Millers Hut 4WD area are advised to leave and all visitors should stay away from these areas.
Ground crews will be checking for vehicles and walkers, with air support if necessary.
Additionally, there is advice for Ensay, Omeo, Swifts Creek, Benambra:
Firefighters are responding to a fire in the 33 KM NE SWIFTS CREEK area in the vicinity of Brumby Rock.
There is currently no threat to communities, but you should continue to stay informed and monitor conditions.
Fire crews battle High Country lightning blazes
FIRE conditions are predicted to significantly worsen on Friday with Severe Fire Danger Ratings forecast across Gippsland.
For Sale a top temperature of 41 degrees has been forecast for Friday with a light shower of two and the chance of a thunderstorm from the early afternoon.
Work by DEPI, Parks Victoria and CFA fire fighters on Wednesday prevented the spread of many fires across Gippsland.
A band of lightning crossed parts of central and east Gippsland and sparked many small fires.
The majority of these fires have been in the area north of Briagolong and the area north of Bruthen.
Firefighting aircraft and dozers were dispatched to support firefighters on the ground.
Gippsland regional fire controller Bryan Russell commended fire crews for their speedy work in very hot and uncomfortable conditions.
As the Gippsland Times went to press crews were fighting fires at Briagolong, Dargo, Treasures, Waterford, Castleburn, Cobbannah.
In the east fires were also burning.
An all clear advice had been issued for fires at Mossiface, Bruthen and Wiseleigh.
I have been out checking some of my special places, to see how they are faring after last summer’s Feathertop fire. The north razorback fire burnt hot up and out of the Ovens river, past Mt Smythe and into the Upper Buckland River and swinging east around the massive bulk of Hotham and towards Dinner Plain.
Many of the forests along the Sugarloaf Ridge were badly burnt and now big swathes of burnt out country have been clearfelled to protect the Great Alpine Road. I understand the need to cut out the alpine ash close to the road that had been killed in the 2013 or earlier fires, but a major over clearing has happened on the slopes of Mt St Bernard, where fire killed snowgums well back from the road had been clearfelled for no obvious reason.
Parts of this country have been burnt three times in a decade. Each year, the land becomes ever more of a mosaic of new burn, older burn, and pockets of old forest – alpine ash and snow gum – that have survived each onslaught. The 2013 fire has killed off forests, glades, slopes that had survived the earlier fires. The headwater country of the Ovens, Buckland, and Wongungarra were hammered hard over the past summer. To my eyes that land seems poorer, from too many burns in too few seasons.
Fire has always been a part of our landscape. And climate science clearly tells us that longer and harder fire seasons are our future. These last few days I have wandered through alpine ash slopes and snow gum forests that had been completely scorched. Other areas have been lightly burnt, others spared altogether. The fire burnt hot up out of the Ovens, then seemed to turn back around some of the higher ridges on the Divide slower and with less heat. Its incredible to see some areas thick with new fern and daisys, while other areas as still mostly bare soil and logs, dead trees still black, streamers of bark rattling in the breeze. In some areas wattle are shooting back, in others, the beginning of Elderberry Panax groves or thick rushes of snow gums re-shooting around the burl of parent trees. If anything, the most recent fires have increased the mosaic effect on the ground.
Below tree line, the forests on these mountains can look so similar from a distance. Up close it is a mix of montane forests merging to alpine ash, leading to snow gum, the mix of vegetation in each place all dependent on slope and aspect, altitude and soil, fire history and circumstance. These most recent fires have added to the mix of already complex ecosystems and forest types.
In my mind I can see a future of more frequent fires, longer summers, warmer winters, and the land that I know and love so well being transformed into something new and poorer. Less old growth, trees pushed beyond their limits, less diversity of living things. But in the short term – summer to summer, the annual cycle that my mind can hold and understand – I see nature adapting and filling the spaces created by each fire. There is a deep ability for tenacity and resilience, seeking balance. The great unknown we face is that we do not yet understand the point at which we will have crossed beyond the balance of resilience and natural cycle into the time when balance will be broken by a human induced future. Some days I am frightened that no one knows, or will even be able to identify, that point of no return, when resilience is surpassed by a new reality that will make our familiar lands a new country, one that is foreign and strange, beyond anything we have known before.
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