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AI and fire fighting. What’s going on?

Whether it is in a national park or other public land, a paddock or a house fire, one of the most important aspects of stopping fires is to get on to them quickly. The sooner that firefighters arrive, the smaller the fire will be and the easier it is to contain. In Victoria, one of the ways we try to keep fires small during high fire danger days is by launching aircraft as soon as a fire is detected. Often aircraft can then get on scene and start to contain the fire before local brigades arrive. This system (called pre-determined dispatch or PDD) was developed as part of the  response to the Victorian Bushfire Royal Commission (VBRC), and was based on a model used in a number of other states. Under PDD, fire fighting aircraft are mobilised as soon as a call out occurs for local fire brigades with a trigger needed to authorise the launch of aircraft.

Other ways we get onto fires quickly includes things like deploying remote area firefighters onto new start fires, inserting rappel crews from helicopters, and sending multiple vehicles at the same time to ensure there are enough resources to tackle the fire. We use real time analysis of satellite images and on some days put aircraft up for surveillance (rather than firefighting) purposes. There is lots of chatter about using drones that could carry water or fire retardant that could be sent to put out small new start fires. And of course, we have traditionally relied on staffed fire lookout towers to spot fires while they are small.

In recent years Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been billed as being a new option for spotting new start fires quickly.

Continue reading “AI and fire fighting. What’s going on?” →

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Fire: how do we control things when we can’t control things?

The Tasmanian National Parks Association (TNPA) recently dedicated an issue of their newsletter to the question of how to manage wild fire in Western Tasmania. As has been widely noted, including here at Mountain Journal, fires having been getting more intense in western lutruwita/ Tasmania since a ‘tipping point’ sometime around the year 2000. 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”.

As TNPA notes in the introduction:

The direct impacts of climate change for Tasmania are changes to weather patterns with corresponding changes to levels of temperature, rainfall and evaporation – most likely a warmer, drier climate overall.

The outcomes of some of these changes are beyond our ability to influence. For example, there are no options for protecting an entire landscape from drought, although it may be possible to save examples of individual species.

As discussed in the following essays, the increased frequency and intensity of wildfires is already resulting in demonstrable impacts on some of Tasmania’s most highly valued species and ecosystems (paleoendemics and alpine ecosystems) and options do exist for how it is managed.

  Continue reading “Fire: how do we control things when we can’t control things?” →

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Snow Gum Summit will return in 2026

Snow Gum Summit – Next Ascent: Protecting Alpine Landscapes

Friends of the Earth Melbourne is excited to share that we are organising a second Snow Gum Summit, which will take place in March 2026 on Ngarigo Country in Jindabyne. The Summit will bring people together from across the Australian Alps bioregion spanning Victoria, NSW and the ACT, to address the threats facing these iconic landscapes we all know and love.

Snow gum forests and woodlands are under accelerating stress from climate change, fire, and beetle-driven dieback. The widespread dieback is equivalent to that of a mass bleaching event of the Great Barrier Reef. Without bold interventions, these ecosystems face ecological collapse within our lifetimes.

The summit will happen over the weekend of March 14 and 15.

Continue reading “Snow Gum Summit will return in 2026” →

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FFMV fleet ‘offline’: what does this mean for the high country?

DEECA and Forest Fire Management Victoria have grounded the entire ultra-light firefighting fleet in Victoria just weeks before fire season commences.

Forest Fire Management Victoria (FFMVic) and the Department of Environment, Energy, and Climate Action (DEECA) have grounded their fleet of 290 Mercedes-Benz G-Wagons and 59 Unimogs. According to reporting from the ABC this was due to safety concerns. There are reports of cracking in the chassis of G-Wagons.

What will this mean for fire fighting in the high country?

Continue reading “FFMV fleet ‘offline’: what does this mean for the high country?” →

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National Climate Risk Assessment – what it means for mountain environments

The National Climate Risk Assessment (the National Assessment) was released this week. Prepared by the Australian Climate Service, it aims to provide an assessment of risk across 8 key systems and 11 regions on the continent, prioritising key risks both within each system and across systems.

This approach aims to provide an understanding of who or what might be at risk from a changing climate, across different areas of the country and paints a national picture for decision makers, to help them prioritise adaptation actions.

A key finding is that Australia’s climate is already changing and will continue to change into the future. The country is likely to experience more intense and extreme climate hazards, and in some cases in areas where people and places haven’t experienced these hazards before.

It is a complex document and while it doesn’t specifically focus on mountain areas, many references are relevant to the mountainous region of the south east and lutruwita/ Tasmania. Risks from climate change include increased stress from higher temperatures, increased fire risk and continued decline in snow pack.

Continue reading “National Climate Risk Assessment – what it means for mountain environments” →

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VIC government must increase efforts to sustain Ash forests

Ash forests – forest comprised of Mountain Ash, Alpine Ash, or sometimes both – are some of the most iconic forest types in Victoria, or even the world. Covering around 500,000 ha of Victoria and stretching from the Otways to the north-eastern boundary with NSW, their stronghold is in the Central Highlands to the east of Melbourne and through the higher ranges of Gippsland and the north east of the state.

These forests have a complex relationship with fire: these forests can live with some fire – but not too much. Scientifically known as ‘obligate seeders’, after severe bushfire, ash forests are killed, but prolifically regenerates from canopy stored seed. The important point here is that these slowly regenerating forests cannot produce seed for 20 years after they regenerate from fire. This means they are highly vulnerable to shortened fire intervals – the exact challenge that land managers in Victoria are facing with climate change.

Once a mountain ash or alpine ash forest has burnt numerous times, it may eventually fail to regenerate, which can lead to population collapse and a change of ecosystem type. This sounds simple, but ecologically, this is dramatic. A tall forest – high in carbon stocks and habitat – changes rapidly to a short shrubland or grassland.

This not theory. This situation already exists among alpine ash forests. The massive bushfires in 1998, 2003, 2006, 2009, 2013, 2014 and 2019/20 and meant that over 97% of Alpine Ash distribution burnt. These fires overlapped and some areas burnt two to three times across two decades (Fagg et al. 2013; Bassett et al. 2021), leaving 43,000 ha of Alpine Ash forest at risk of collapse (Fairman, 2023).

Mountain Journal has long reported about threats to Ash forests and the need for greater government intervention (check here for some of the articles).

Now people involved in the recovery of Ash forests have recently spoken out about the threats posed to these forests.

Continue reading “VIC government must increase efforts to sustain Ash forests” →

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The Victorian Protected Areas Council

We all know that national parks and other public land managers really struggle to get the funds needed to look after the conservation estate. In Victoria, there have been steady cut backs in staffing. Parks Victoria (PV) now manages around 18% of Victoria’s land and coastal waters with fewer full-time staff than when it was established in 1996. Its permanent workforce shrank by 12% last year.

Now, a group of former PV staff have joined together to lobby for better funding for national parks and other protected areas. The Victorian Protected Areas Council (VPAC) brings together experienced park managers and rangers. You can read more below.

Continue reading “The Victorian Protected Areas Council” →

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Planned burn in biodiversity hotspot

This summer has seen sustained community campaigns against specific fuel reduction burns, from Flowerdale to Gippsland. Now Friends of Bats and Habitat have raised the alarm about a large burn which is planned for the Mitchell River National Park.

Roaring Mag: There are so many redflags with this remote 1,875 ha Forest Fire Management Victoria (FFMV) burn which is expected to be ignited within ten days in the Mitchell River National Park. A rapid desktop survey brings up a whole of suite of threatened, rare and endemic flora and fauna records within this burn site. Dropping off cliffs are waterfalls, sheltered narrow gullies, large areas of old growth forest, and the most southern occurrence of warm temperate rainforest … If you went looking for a Spot-tailed Quoll, this is where it might be.

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A report from the snow gum summit

Each year it gets a little harder to ignore the impacts of climate change. For us mountain folk, the obvious signs are the more erratic winters, the dwindling snowpack, and the longer fire seasons that, increasingly, disrupt our summers.

Every natural ecosystem on the planet is being impacted by climate change. In the Australian high country, the two most obvious victims are alpine ash and snow gums. It is impossible to miss the walls of grey dead trunks and the thick and flammable regrowth as you drive up into the mountains from any valley town. Climate change is making our fire seasons longer and snow gums are increasingly being burnt beyond their ability to recover. Research from Latrobe University[1] shows that ‘long unburnt’ snow gums are now ‘exceedingly rare’ in the Victorian Alps, comprising less than 1% of snow gum forests.

And dieback is now killing thousands of trees. Dieback is a natural phenomena, caused by a native beetle. However, climate change appears to be ‘super charging’ the scale of the impact. This is because winters are shorter and warmer (meaning more beetles survive the cold months) and summers are hotter and drier (meaning trees are more water stressed and less able to produce the sap that acts as a defence against beetle infestations).

Continue reading “A report from the snow gum summit” →

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What next after the logging? Have your say

On January 1, 2024, all native forest logging on public lands in the east of the state of Victoria ended. This is a wonderful win for forests, animals, landscapes and the climate, and comes after decades of hard work by many thousands of people.

After a long wait, the state government has now announced the consultation process for making a decision about how these forests should be managed in the future. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to influence the way Victoria’s forests are cared for into the future. Fill out this short survey as part of the Great Outdoors Taskforce’s engagement on the future of state forests.

Continue reading “What next after the logging? Have your say” →

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A new fire fighting team for Victoria

On Tuesday November 12, lightning started a fire in remote country north of Valencia Creek in the Victorian high country.

On Wednesday November 13, two rappel crews from Forest Fire Management Victoria (FFMV) were airlifted into the Avon Wilderness to fight the fire.

The crews created a mineral earth break around the fire and spent two days extinguishing hotspots before it was announced that the fire had been contained. In total the fire burnt around 1.3 hectares of forest. (Source: FFMV facebook).

This sort of early intervention is what is needed to stop small fires from turning into uncontrollable blazes.

Continue reading “A new fire fighting team for Victoria” →

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Black Summer biodiversity study suggests rethink of prescribed burns and fire management in Australia

 

This is not ‘new’ news. But it does add to the conversation that is underway about the role of prescribed burning (also called planned burning and fuel reduction burning) in terms of reducing fire risk.  

A new study examining plant and animal species after the Black Summer fire season has found greater biodiversity loss in areas that have been subject to frequent burning. Six ecosystems were considered, including alpine, wetland, rainforests and dry and wet eucalypt forest.

Sites with three or more fires in the 40 years leading up to the 2019–20 Black Summer were far more negatively impacted than previously unburnt areas or sites that had burnt once during that time.

Continue reading “Black Summer biodiversity study suggests rethink of prescribed burns and fire management in Australia” →

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