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How to make a submission to the Inquiry into Victoria’s fires

On 14 January 2020 the Andrews government announced an independent inquiry into the 2019-2020 Victorian fire season would be conducted by the Inspector-General for Emergency Management (IGEM).

Through this Inquiry, IGEM will ‘examine Victoria’s preparedness for the fire season, response to fires in large parts of Victoria’s North East, Gippsland, and Alpine regions, and will review relief and recovery efforts’.

There is still time to make a submission to this process.

Continue reading “How to make a submission to the Inquiry into Victoria’s fires” →

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Reseeding the Alpine Ash and Mountain Ash forests

There is no doubt that our fire seasons are getting longer and more intense and this is starting to have potentially landscape changing impacts. There is concern that Alpine Ash forests could be wiped out in some areas where fire comes in multiple waves before the recovering trees can set seed. Parts of north eastern Victoria have been burnt three times in a decade. Mountain Ash forests face similar threats.

It is tragic that fires are so frequent and intense that we face the prospect of seeing these vegetation communities collapse. There are many ways we must respond: acting decisively on climate change, and protecting these forests from wildfire and over logging. Aerial seeding programs also aim to help these forests survive.

Continue reading “Reseeding the Alpine Ash and Mountain Ash forests” →

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Shared Firefighting in a hotter world

Australia just had its hottest, driest year on record, with fires starting in the winter months and burning in some places until early March. Much of the Alps, including the Snowy Mountains, Upper Murray, Eastern Alps and East Gippsland were burnt. Then, as we started to get on top of the worst of the fires, the mountains of the ACT went off, with enormous blazes that devastated the high country of Namadgi National Park.

Thousands of volunteer and career firefighters battled these blazes. As is normal practise, states helped each other out by sending teams and resources. My CFA brigade sent strike teams to NSW and then Mallacoota. By February we were asked to send teams to the ACT fires. We were fighting fires at home too, and we were all bloody glad when the rains came in mid February.

As fire seasons get longer because of climate change, the prospect of fighting local fires and also having to support other states for larger sections of the year is daunting for fire fighters. Helping each other out is second nature to firefighters, and a tradition we will maintain. But longer fire seasons does mean greater impact and time away from home and work for volunteers. It means greater expenditure on career firefighters. It means greater wear and tear on trucks and other equipment if they are being used for more of the year. It is also a problem for those who have to ensure we have adequate air support to be able to fight fires. Because many of the firefighting aircraft are leased, and shared around the world, as fire seasons get longer, there will be ever more demand, and greater cost, to secure the fleet we need.

A recent report in Bloomberg by By Mira Rojanasakul and Hayley Warren highlights the scale of the firefighting effort that happens, and the cost of keeping planes and helicopters on the fireground.

Continue reading “Shared Firefighting in a hotter world” →

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Fire impacts on the alpine treeline

Australia only has a tiny portion of it’s landmass which is sub alpine or alpine. We know that climate change is already impacting on mountain environments, and without meaningful action to reduce greenhouse emissions, this will only continue.

The true alpine zone, that area above the treeline, is tiny relative to the landmass. The tree line is the highest elevation that sustains tree growth and is around 1,800 metres above sea level in mountain areas on the mainland (lower in Tasmania). The tree line is mainly defined by the gradual disappearance of snow gums (Eucalyptus pauciflora), which are a type of Eucalyptus that can withstand the severe cold and dry conditions of the mountains. The tree line is defined by temperature, not altitude, which explains why Australia has a lower tree line than most other countries.

As the climate warms, it can be expected that snow gums will be able to colonise the open alpine terrain above. This will lead to the loss of the true alpine vegetation, as these communities are ‘pushed off the top’ of the mountains and replaced by snow gum woodland. New research sheds light on this process, and has shown the role that fire plays in how snow gums encroach of alpine zones.

A research paper titled ‘Alpine treeline ecotone stasis in the face of recent climate change and disturbance by fire’ (available here) and authored by Aviya Naccarella, John W. Morgan, Seraphina C. Cutler, and Susanna E. Venn considers the interaction between fire, climate change and the treeline. In short, and as you would expect, this research suggests that more frequent fire slows the rate of colonisation of trees above treeline.

Continue reading “Fire impacts on the alpine treeline” →

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The Tabletop Fire, three months on

As fire seasons get longer and more intense, the impacts on the mountains that we love are already obvious. The forests get younger as wave after wave of fire kills the older trees and sometimes come so frequently they also kill off the new generations of seedlings.

Wildfire has devastated large swathes of snow gum habitat in the last few decades, with significant fires in the Victorian High Country in 1998, 2002/3, 2006/7 and 2013. Over 90% of the Victorian distribution of snow gums has been burned at least once since 2003. Each of the large fires of the last 15 years has overlapped to some extent, leaving thousands of hectares of snow gums burned by wildfire twice, and sometimes three times.

The take home message from research into snow gum forest is that if we want to have a hope of keeping remaining old forests, we need to exclude fire from them wherever possible.

I thought I would check out some forests that were burnt this summer. The news is a mix of good and bad.

Continue reading “The Tabletop Fire, three months on” →

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Kuark forest after the fires

The old growth forest of Kuark is (I can’t bring myself to say ‘was’) a jewel in the wild landscape of East Gippsland. It provides habitat for threatened species such as the Sooty, Masked and Powerful owls, Greater gliders and Long footed potoroos, and is a rare rainforest type where warm and cool temperate rainforest blend together in an ‘over lap’ assemblage.

There was a long campaign, led by Goongerah Environment Centre (GECO) and The Wilderness Society to see the Kuark protected. It had considerable success, and was scheduled to be fully protected under a Bill in parliament to include Kuark in the Errinundra National Park.

Then this summer happened. I watched in horror as parts of the legendary Errinundra Plateau burnt and the rainforests of Martins Creek were devastated. I hadn’t heard news of the Kuark until now.

Ed Hill led the campaign to protect the Kuark forest. He has been up there recently. This is his report.

Continue reading “Kuark forest after the fires” →

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Inquiry into the 2019-20 Victorian Fire Season

This summer’s fires had a devastating impact on the environment and economies of the Victorian, NSW and ACT mountains.

Now, the Victorian government, through the Inspector-General for Emergency Management or IGEM, is holding an inquiry into ‘Victoria’s preparedness for and response to the 2019-20 fire season’. You can make a submission to this process.

Continue reading “Inquiry into the 2019-20 Victorian Fire Season” →

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Research highlights the fire threat to King Billy Pine

Tasmania is home to a treasure trove of ancient vegetation that emerged when Australia was part of the Gondwanda super continent. Most of the relict vegetation is not fire adapted (fire being a relatively recent arrival to Australia compared to Gondwanaland). Widespread wildfires in early 2016 caused devastating damage across large areas of the Tasmanian World Heritage Area, including significant sections of vegetation which is not fire adapted, such as Pencil Pine forests.

At the time, and in follow up investigations, it became clear that increased fire risk due to climate change posed an existential threat to these vegetation types. Now additional research has confirmed the trend towards more extreme fire seasons. It suggests that we reached a ‘tipping point’ sometime around the year 2000and that, since then, there has been an increase in the number of lightning-caused fires and an increase in the average size of the fires, “resulting in a marked increase in the area burnt”.

Research just released through the journal Global Change Biology, titled ‘Population collapse and retreat to fire refugia of the Tasmanian endemic conifer Athrotaxis selaginoides following the transition from Aboriginal to European fire management’ underscores the threat posed to these forest types.

Continue reading “Research highlights the fire threat to King Billy Pine” →

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Global warming played a ‘big role’ in generating heat waves that fueled the 2019-2020 fire season

This summer’s fires had devastating impacts on landscapes and local economies.

For the first time in eight months, all the NSW fires are out. The Namadgi fires are out, as are the fires in north east Victoria and East Gippsland. During the fires, there was an attempt by some groups to blame the fires on arson as a way of avoiding the conversation about climate change. There is the ongoing debate about the role of fuel reduction burning as a way to reduce the intensity of fire, plus the broader conversation about how we manage our forests and wild places, and whether salvage logging of burnt areas should be allowed.

Now, a ground-breaking report has shown that climate change was a ‘massive factor’ in the extreme fire conditions that devastated Australia this summer.

The report was prepared by World Weather Attribution (WWA), which ‘is an international effort to analyse and communicate the possible influence of climate change on extreme weather events, such as storms, extreme rainfall, heatwaves, cold spells, and droughts’.

Continue reading “Global warming played a ‘big role’ in generating heat waves that fueled the 2019-2020 fire season” →

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Show your support for horse removal from the Snowy Mountains

Following this summer’s fires, which burnt roughly 12% of the ‘Alpine Complex’ vegetation in the Snowy Mountains, there are growing concerns about the impact of wild horses on already fragile country that is now recovering from fire.

The current NSW government has continually failed to act to protect the NSW High Country, by refusing to support horse removal programs. But in a surprise move, the NSW environment minister, Matt Kean, recently announced that ‘about’ 4,000 feral horses will be removed from Kosciuszko national park as ‘part of an emergency response to protect the alpine ecosystem after large areas were devastated by bushfires’.

The move would be the largest removal of horses in the park’s history.

Continue reading “Show your support for horse removal from the Snowy Mountains” →

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Warburton residents call for halt to logging proposal on Mt Bride

Community members from Warburton are attempting to stop the proposed logging coupes on and surrounding Mt Bride.

They say that “logging this area will reduce water security as the proposed coupes are within water catchment areas and it has long been recognised that logging has a negative impact on water yield”.

They also say that the coupes will increase fire risk, “as the micro climatic conditions will dry out the understory and the regrowth saplings will create more fuel”.

Continue reading “Warburton residents call for halt to logging proposal on Mt Bride” →

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Does Victoria need a new remote area volunteer firefighting force?

On New Year’s Eve, December 31, 2019, a front brought a smattering of rain across the Victorian mountains, barely enough to damp down the dust. But the associated lightning storm started dozens of new fires in a long belt from Mt Buller to the NSW border.

Forest Fire Management crews swung into action and many of these were quickly put out. Aerial bombing dealt with others. But there were simply too many, and some grew into massive blazes, including the fires that went on to devastate the forests and landscapes of East Gippsland in coming weeks.

This raises the question: Do we need a new remote area volunteer firefighting force in Victoria who could help suppress lightning strike fires before they take off?

Continue reading “Does Victoria need a new remote area volunteer firefighting force?” →

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