The Bushfires in Victoria were a paradigm-shifting event - gripping, terrifying and devastating for dozens of communities and hundreds of families…The news was shocking in its magnitude and the disaster will have enormous consequences for land management and housing development across the nation. Professor Poongschtok is an alias for one of Real Dirt’s most informed readers. He knows what he is talking about so his piece may be long but every word is worth reading. It is the other side of the story.
It was inevitable. The search for someone to blame, for someone to be made responsible. Strangely, unlike all other natural disasters, this only seems to occur after bushfires – not cyclones, or tsunamis or earthquakes, just bushfires. Unfortunately, the arguments criticising the perceived lack of hazard reduction burning have all the credibility, substantiation and science of a lynch mob swinging a noose. And that’s because the arguments are entirely political not logical….
The claim is that the Victorian fires and others before them were so devastating because we’ve failed to heed the lessons of history about fire management, lessons which were taught to us by the Aboriginal people, information that is now part of so-called ‘local knowledge’ but ignored by fire management authorities. So it continues - Greenies are really to blame because they stop the ‘burning off’ that would reduce fuel making bushfires less intense and easier for fire fighters to put out. It’s a line of argument that is relentlessly propagated each fire season by a specific coalition of particular interest groups with an axe to grind or a grievance about land management in south eastern Australia. There’s a clear ulterior motive here which really relates to the management of public lands. It’s an argument that conveniently ignores the fact that the vast majority of the country’s fire prone forests are actually privately owned and where little or no fire management practise is implemented. It’s not really a debate either. It’s an accusation hurled by the ‘anti-conservationists’ with a specific desire to regain access to lands they once controlled for timber harvesting, grazing and exploitation. Environmentalists are not even really engaged in the debate because they have no disagreement at all with the idea of undertaking hazard reduction to protect property and assets. Never have, never will.
The claims of course, are absolute nonsense. They are frequently made by people who are clearly not authorities on the subject of fire science such as media commentators like the Sydney Morning Herald’s Michael Duffy and Miranda Devine or 2GBs Alan Jones– who more often than not quote dubious sources – “a farmer I know or a bloke I spoke to”. Duffy’s most recent attack in the Sydney Morning Herald (Feb 14) is based on the views of a single farmer living next to Kosciuszko National Park. The latest and more bizarre entry into the debate on behalf of the pro-burn lobby is none other than noted fire scientist, one Germain Greer, who, in the UK’s Telegraph, attacks government for lack of action and says we should manage the land the way Aboriginal people did. No sources of this wisdom are ever cited, it’s just common knowledge. Everyone knows what the Aboriginal people did with fire. And now this dangerous myth is gospel and deeply entrenched in the community’s belief that burning off will prevent what happened in Victoria.
The claims made by such people about the effectiveness of and need for more hazard reduction burning are dangerous, maybe as dangerous as the fires themselves because they have over the past 20 years only served to confirm in the minds of many that somehow hazard reduction burning is the silver bullet that would prevent such disasters as has just occurred. They might help on an average day – MIGHT! But they have no affect on restraining a flaming tornado influenced by temperatures in the mid 40s and powered by 100km per hour winds.
Hazard reduction burning, controlled burning, prescribed burning, fuel reduction burning are all terms used to describe the act of burning during cooler times of the year, usually spring and autumn. Its aim is to reduce fine fuels (leaves and twigs) from a selected area in the expectation that removal will reduce the intensity of a future wildfire under much warmer bushfire conducive conditions thereby making it easier for fire fighters to extinguish. (Back burning is something else altogether and when you hear someone use this term in relation to hazard reduction burning then you know they have no idea what they are talking about). Its effectiveness and value is constantly being debated by fire scientists. Professor Ross Bradstock of Wollongong University says in the Sydney Morning Herald (Feb 18) that fuel reduction would only have prevented the Victorian tragedy if the forests had been removed and paved with concrete. There is not unanimity on this subject but there is some general agreement that under average bushfire conditions there may be some value in using this as a tool to reduce fuel loads in bushland immediately adjacent to assets such as homes although there are clearly risks associated with it. More than one house has been destroyed in the past due to hazard reduction burns which became uncontrolled bushfires. Four national parks firefighters perished in a supposedly simple and routine hazard reduction burn in 2000.
There are some fatal flaws in the assumption that hazard reduction burning is the answer to the prevention of catastrophes such as occurred in Victoria. Very simply, if bushfires are generally started by lightning strikes or arson it is obvious we have no idea where they are likely to start. And if you truly believe that fuel reduction burning will help you fight those fires by reducing their intensity and making them easier to extinguish then (because you’ve no idea where they will start) by rights you are probably best advised to regularly burn all of the country’s fire prone forests. If fuel reduction burning has an effective benefit for three to five years then you’d probably aim to burn between 33% and 20% of the forested landscape annually. And of course we are talking not just about the small area of fire prone forests in public ownership such as national parks and State forests but also the vast area of privately owned forests which is more than half the area at risk of serious bushfires. We are therefore talking about thousands upon thousands of hectares to be burnt annually from south-eastern Queensland, through NSW to Melbourne and Adelaide above and beyond what is already torched. It’s an enormous area to be burnt and all on the assumption that it ‘might’ help on an average bushfire day and will do nothing on a very extreme one. According to its annual reports, despite only a fraction of all bushfires beginning in national parks, the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) in NSW has indicated it has burnt over 200,000 hectares over the past five years in fuel reduction burns, an average of 40,000 hectares for just the parks. Victoria has in the 2007-08 managed to burn a total of 156,000 hectares for all its public lands including State Forests and crown lands. The pro-burn lobby wants to burn much, much more than this! Start adding noughts and you’ll be on the money!
The nostalgic days of horsemen riding along dropping matches into the bush to promote grasses for grazing are long since gone. There’s too many homes and industrial infrastructure that has been built in and amongst the eucalypts of south eastern Australia for this practise to be vaguely safe. Today the act of executing a safe fuel reduction burn requires months of planning and is resource intensive aside from being potentially very dangerous. Some of the smallest burns, those generally conducted immediately adjacent to peoples’ homes, can be by far the most complex, challenging and resource hungry operations. The bigger burns in more remote locations are often conducted by a handful of staff because of their limited risk to people.
The nation simply does not have the resources to undertake fuel reduction burning on the scale the pro-burn lobby has proposed and we know already the public will get very sick of living within a thick and constant pall of smoke for weeks maybe months on end. Complaints come from all quarters and range from the tourism industry annoyed at the spoliation of holiday weather over Easter to wine growers complaining over the impacts of smoke on a grape harvest and then there’s Mum concerned about her asthmatic child. Just ask any of the country’s fire fighting agencies who calls during the hazard reduction burning season.
Another rarely considered point is that the scale of what’s being proposed presents some very significant health risks for the population. Just Google the words ‘mortality’ and ‘smoke haze’ and you will find a mountain of scientific literature on the health impacts of smoke from fires. Health authorities have known for some time that during intense pollution events such as hazard reduction burns and bushfires that there is a spike in mortality rates within the general population caused largely by the massive increase in particulate matter which is duly inhaled by all. It’s the elderly who suffer the most. People die during the peak of the hazard reduction burning season that would not if not for the intense smoke. There’s a significant likelihood that over the years fuel reduction burning kills more people than the fires they are meant to limit.
In this Greenhouse era one also wonders the wisdom of allowing such enormous amounts of previously locked up carbon to be released into the atmosphere each and every year as opposed to sporadic outbreaks of bushfires in intermittent years. We are going to have big bushfires whether we hazard reduce or not. Additional broadscale burning will simply add to the massive release of carbon we’d all prefer to remain locked up. If only for the reasons of limiting our contribution to Greenhouse gasses we must ensure that all hazard reduction burning is strategic and absolutely necessary.
The most frustrating aspect to hazard reduction burning for authorities is that the conditions for them to be conducted safely are quite specific. Not too hot, not too cold, not too windy and not to dry and of course rain will kill the best laid burning plan stone dead. Even light mist will. In the end there’s just a handful of days in the year when it can actually be done safely. If you do not get the right conditions the proposed burning can be a complete waste of time when nothing burns or just bloody dangerous. Frequently, despite the best laid plans burns have to be abandoned and rescheduled to the next season.
While the actual logistics, results and risks associated with fuel reduction burning as a legitimate fire management tool are collectively dubious the jury is still out on whether it actually works at all. Fire fighters will say that in average bushfire weather fuel reduction might help. In conditions experienced during the Canberra fires of 2003 or the recent Victorian tragedy where temperatures were hitting mid 40s amidst 120km per hour winds prayers might be just as effective. In reality nothing is going to stop a fire under such conditions. Fires are racing through canopies that can’t be effectively hazard reduced in autumn. The moist, towering 70 metre high Mountain ash forests of Victoria are virtually unburnable except at the hottest times of the year when it’s just too dangerous. It’s evolved to be this way. During Canberra 2003 bushfires flames tore from the Brindabella Ranges across 5-12km of drought affected, fodderless paddocks in sheets of flame to hammer Canberra’s western suburbs and there is nothing more fuel reduced than this except a concrete car park. There are numerous other examples of areas recently burnt during a fuel reduction burn supporting rampaging bushfires the next season. It’s just not worth relying on and to tell the community it is the answer is very dangerous.
Perhaps the single greatest myth upon which so many people rely to support their ardent views about the need for frequent broadscale burning is that the Aboriginal people burnt large areas of the bush all the time and if we just replicated this all would be fine and there’d be far fewer ferocious fires. The reality is that there is very little real understanding of just what the Aborigines did with fire before Europeans arrived partly because we weren’t here to record it. Even beyond this point after Europeans arrived much of our knowledge is based on observations by some fairly compromised observers with little understanding about what they were recording. The historic record about Aboriginal fire management is flimsy and full of assumption and guesses. Today our common knowledge of Aboriginal burning practises is a construct that is myth built upon myth. The oft quoted example from Captain Cook who observed considerable amounts of smoke has been extrapolated by many to simply mean the Aborigines were undertaking extensive hazard reduction burning. Were they really?? How do we arrive immediately at this conclusion? Could it have been something else, like the remains of a bushfire caused by lightning or multiple campfires? Just how much smoke did he see? Probably a lot more than an Englishman was used to. Such interpretations are certainly not something the nation’s future fire management strategy should be built upon and yet it is always pushed hard by those who think burning everything is a replication of Aboriginal practise. Yes the Aboriginal people of Australia used fire extensively but they certainly did not use it as a fuel reduction tool to protect property, assets and infrastructure. They used it for spiritual reasons, to clear paths along which they travelled and to encourage vegetation growth that would attract game for hunting. What they did 200 years ago in the eucalypt forests of south-eastern Australia is also considerably different to what happens today in the savannah grasslands of northern Australia where vegetation type and conditions are entirely different.
A very thorough study by fire scientist Phil Zylstra, A fire history of the Australian Alps, commissioned by the Australian Alps Liaison Committee following the 2003 fires, is one of the few studies which has considered scientifically at the use of fire by Aboriginal people. It offers some very enlightening figures and statistics about the actual history of fire through the ages in the areas recently savaged by fire between 2003 and 2009. It’s not been well read unfortunately but it has been publicly available and conveniently overlooked.
Zylstra went back 600 years and looked at both the scientific and historical record examining all the available information to establish a credible history of fire in the Alps. Significantly his study was able to draw on information obtained from methods as diverse as pollen and charcoal deposits as well as dendochronology (study of tree rings) and the historical references by various observers through time.
What he found is completely contrary to views being expressed by today’s pro-burn lobby which continually cites Aboriginal burning practises as good reason to burn and burn big.
What he discovered is that the Aboriginal people did not burn the Alps frequently, or across large areas. He proved that the arrival of Europeans however, resulted in a sudden and dramatic increase in fire frequency and today we have returned to a much lower frequency burning and bushfire regime, one that is a little closer to the period before European settlement.
Zylstra’s review looked at all 12 dendochronological studies of fire in the Alps. Of these, the site with the most frequent fire before the arrival of Europeans showed ten years between fires. The average across all sites was 41-55 years, while some areas of the subalpine country went without fire for over 100 years.
The evidence very clearly points to a sudden increase in fire frequency following the arrival of Europeans, with fires occurring on average every five years, which means Europeans were burning the landscape seven to eight times more often than Aboriginal people did.
Zylstra describes the view that, “the Aboriginal people simply burnt anything they could at any time they were able,” as “folklore” and nothing more.
In the historic literature Zylstra could only find five references to Aboriginal use of fire in the Australian Alps. None of these refer to actual observations of Aboriginal people burning the bush. Aboriginal involvement in the lighting of fire in the Alps was assumed in each case, and yet these references form the basis of a belief that Aboriginal people were burning the bush both frequently and without thoughtful planning.
Zylstra demonstrated that despite the frequency of burning during the period of European settlement, major bushfires became much more frequent than before, undermining significantly the theory that increased burning reduced the incidence of bushfires.
A second and constantly promoted lie over the past two decades is that “the greenies are to blame” because they have stopped fuel reduction burning. Not a single example of this has ever been offered or proved. No fuel reduction burn has been stopped because of the objections of environmentalists. It just does not happen. It’s an out and out lie. It’s just simply an argument that is wheeled out each fire season by people and groups who are unaccountable for what they say and who offer quotable quotes simply too colourful for the media to allow unreported. “It’s the greenies fault!!” But which greenies? Where? When exactly? How? Examples please? These are all facts that never appear when the allegation is raised and it is raised constantly by certain media commentators without a shred of evidence. Strangely the environment movement lives on the fringe of this debate. Few greenies are ever quoted as ever having raised objections to hazard reduction. No particular movement is ever identified. The various green groups stand on the sidelines of a brawl they are not actually invited to waving their hand desperately to point out that their websites and brochures all make clear statements about the need for strategic hazard reduction burning in places where it will actually offer some advantage over an advancing bushfire. And yet the conservation movement in general is broadly blamed for the lack of hazard reduction burning. It is simply nonsense.
Another line lovingly pushed by some media commentators and conservative rural politicians in particular is that authorities just don’t listen to ‘local knowledge’ and by this they generally mean the ‘salt of the earth’ volunteer fire fighting farmer who knows the land and the layout and the ways of the bush. The farmer is supposedly someone who is replicating the practise and knowledge of the Aboriginal people. But sadly ignored ‘local knowledge’ has been a major contributor to the failure of authorities to manage fire. There may well be examples of some local knowledge being ignored during the heat of major fire suppression operations but generally it is a truism that local fire authorities are in fact people who live within the local community and have done for decades. The ranks of the rural fire fighting agencies are in fact made up largely of local volunteers who are the backbone of local fire fighting efforts. Local fire fighters have a direct influence on how a fire is fought. The claims make little sense but hides what has been a growth in resentment towards a better organised and strategic but centralised approach to statewide fire management planning through the new rural fire fighting agencies in each State. History shows that local knowledge is not always best. The same sources of ‘local knowledge’ have also been in part responsible for leaving us with chronic soil salinity, erosion, rivers and streams which have become drains not to mention the worst rate of mammal extinctions for any part of the planet. This is what ‘local knowledge’ has contributed in other realms of land management. Such a record in land management undermines the credibility of supposed skills and knowledge on the land in relation to fire.
So why has the pro-burn lobby achieved so much traction? It’s interesting to see just who is critical of fire management practises in Australia and precisely who are the targets for the greatest criticism. It’s an argument that falls exclusively along party lines. It’s generally the rural conservatives versus the city greenies. Let’s be more specific. The National Party versus the Labor Party, the latte left from Glebe versus the rural right from Cooma. It’s some members of some park user groups aggrieved over management decisions that exclude their particular activities from certain parks and reserves. It’s farmers struggling to support families on postage stamp farms nostalgic for times when Grandad was on council (or in Parliament) and the farm was five times larger who resent the establishment of a national park over the back fence where they once could ride, shoot, burn and slash their way through the countryside with complete impunity. It’s a timber industry and loggers who’ve seen their power, influence and jobs evaporate beneath a groundswell of city concern about the need to halt extinctions and counter the Greenhouse effect and the departments who’ve received the benefits of increased numbers of national parks. Ultimately it’s an argument between those who’ve lost the previously unfettered access and use of certain publicly owned lands to those who have it now and the resulting deep resentment towards the environment movement that this has engendered. Arguments about fire management fall directly along these lines revealing the motives under the arguments. It’s not really about fire management. Those who argue about ‘management’ of our forests and continually criticise the way they are managed are really arguing for ‘no management’ so that they can have the access they used to have. Unfortunately the debate about fire management is tangled with access and use and the result is that myth and self interest has overwhelmed good sense.
Australia has a long history of vicious, catastrophic bushfires. We use what tools that are available such as hazard reduction, good planning, housing design and cooperative, coordinated fire management and suppression. Hazard reduction is generally done where it’s most likely to have the greatest benefit – directly next to assets and property at risk. There is no point simply burning all of the bush all of the time. It’s simply not feasible logistically, likely to be very dangerous, will kill more people than it will protect not to mention the impact it will have on water catchments and the environment. We’ve just witnessed what are undoubtedly the most ferocious and destructive fires in Australia’s modern history and to suggest that they could have been prevented by hazard reduction burning defies all logic and highlights the vindictiveness and self interest of those people who hurl this accusation. Fire management is an inexact science and it will always be thus but it needs communities to accept that efforts to mange for fire in the Australian landscape will never completely stop its destructive forces and that no one in particular is to blame for something that has always happened and always will.
51 responses so far ↓
1 Jane Salmon // Feb 18, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Not a climate for subtlety or for treasuring ‘natural assets’ rather than housing and human life, is it. Great shame all round.
2 Les Mitchell // Feb 18, 2009 at 9:39 pm
A great article and summary of the issues about hazard reduction burning. I fully endorse the sentiments expressed and have been disgusted by the accusations and blame apportioned to conservationists and professional land managers re the horrific Victorian bushfires. I have witnessed a wildfire racing across a large area of forest which had been burnt only 5 months previously - the fire danger index that day was extreme.
3 Denis Wilson // Feb 18, 2009 at 10:07 pm
Hi James
Great post by your “informed reader”.
There are people out there using this event shamelessly to push their own agendas.
The “blame the Greenies” case is appalling nonsense.
Mind you, I am partial to the “dugouts” option for rural communities, which might have helped save some lives.
But mostly, I feel that people who have moved into the tall timbered country in Victoria showed little or no understanding of what a real fire can do.
Surely part of loving the bush is respecting it. You cannot oppose such forces as a genuine “Fire Storm”, you have to have planned around it, including the option to leave - early.
Please, no more settlements in areas like the southern fringes of Sydney, with housing developments allowed along ridges, with a single road in. The Developers love the prices such exclusive estates fetch, but they are a death-trap, potentially.
Denis
4 Tony Ashton // Feb 19, 2009 at 7:37 am
Fine summary. But surely the need is to examine how to save lives through mandatory fire-proofing of homes and their immediate surroundings?
5 Quentin Chester // Feb 19, 2009 at 8:29 am
Nature happens. And at times it will happen in ways that no one can forsee, prepare for or control. As families and communities all we can do is use the best resources and knowledge we can muster to look after our homes and habitats. But there will always be days when that’s not going to be enough.
For some media commentators to rush in and attack any group in our society for what happened is shameful beyond belief. But that’s the commentator’s sorry trade - grinding a living by trying to pervert public sentiment, by stirring up a culture of blame, division and complaint.
Worst of all, it’s an affront to the grief of those most affected by the devastation.
6 Nadine Andrew // Feb 19, 2009 at 8:51 am
Fires are always a potentially dangerous & unpredictable thing no matter who/what starts them. If we fool ourselves into thinking we can control them, a short stint living in rural or semi-rural Victoria will soon change this view.
What we do need to understand is how, given that with climate change it is reasonable to expect that these types of fires may be an increasingly ‘normal’ part of summer, how can we make ourselves safer. Not all of us want to live in urban areas (besides at some point urban becomes rural!). We enjoy the bush, acknowledge the risks (tho that is easy to do when there is no impending fire-storm), involve ourselves in our local CFA brigade and prepare ourselves & properties as best we can. We need to get better at this and we need to build shire councils that can support this balance between safety & ‘green wedge’ imperatives. It is now not appropriate to severely fine residents who remove risky vegetation. We live in the bush because we like trees, we will not indiscriminantly remove trees to make our place look like Malvern, we do it thoughtfully to protect as best we can our kids, animals (domestic & wild) and property.
Fire reduction days make us all nervous.
7 Phil // Feb 19, 2009 at 10:18 am
I have to say that I am all for putting the pressure on government, business or any other influential party that is not behaving as it should. The important thing is that it has to be grounded in reality and reality is definitely not popular with this particular lynch mob. Have a look at the big picture for a moment: English migrants take the country from the Aboriginal nations. They refer to these people as “children” and publish pseudoscience suggesting that they are less than human. With complete disdain for Aboriginal knowledge, the settlers assume that they understand the vast complexities of Aboriginal fire management because they saw someone light a fire once, but their approach to fire management is all based on the idea that anything native is inferior. “Clean out the bush” by burning all the rubbish (the new term for native plants), replace the drought hardy native grasses with “improved” pasture from the northern hemisphere and either shoot or breed out the native people and replace them with superior whites.
As the years wear on, people forget the past cruelty but retain the arrogance. It becomes popular to justify ineffective and dangerous burning practices by saying they were learnt from the Aborigines. All 4 of the massive landscape fires that burnt hundreds of thousands to millions of Ha of the Australian Alps at a time between 1898 and1952 were escaped fires from people “cleaning out the bush”. They didn’t burn what the Bemeringal people would have burnt, didn’t wait for the cloud to settle at the right peak, didn’t watch the floral indicators or the signs of the bush to tell them if there was bad weather coming, didn’t control their fires to the particular stand of trees that needed it; they just threw out matches.
We are now at a point in history where people that have never spoken to an Aboriginal person about fire claim vehemently to be the custodians of the entire knowledge of all 700 nations. This is not a misunderstanding, this is a criminal continuation of the same old attitudes of superiority. The same old assumptions that it’s just simple knowledge, that you can pick it up by hearing a quote, that there’s nothing else to learn; case closed, I’m right.
All Aussies love the bush of course - so long as the Possums don’t make a noise at night, the Galahs don’t snip off the Daffodils, the dog can kill whatever he wants, and we can bulldoze as much as we like. And anyone that dares to suggest that clearing up the rubbish won’t stop all of the bushfires that have burnt since Adam was a boy should apparently be hung from a lamp post.
8 Steve // Feb 19, 2009 at 11:11 am
Didn’t ‘the Lord’ say “Fill the Earth and master it”, or words to that effect?
I think we’re still dealing with the left-overs of the traditional Christian view that ‘Man (sic) has dominion over Earth’. We think we can control everything and what’s more, we’re entitled, if not required to do so to protect our perceived interests, irrespective of the real cost.
Christianity isn’t the sole source or even the original source of this ‘thinking’. It is just as much a product of the so-called Enlightenment - essentially scientism - we have the technology…
I’m with the ‘Professor’ on the issue of HR burning and those dastardly ‘greenies’. HR isn’t the panacea for wildfire. Putting poorly designed houses in fire-prone locations is a major problem that no amount of HR will resolve. The general absence of effective fire refuges is also a problem at least in some landscapes. But as someone who has worked in this field for governments, private clients, and conservation groups, I’m yet to see any evidence that environmentalism has been successful in its alleged aim of preventing or reducing the frequency and scale of HR burning.
But I have seen evidence that fire authorities think environmentalists and ecologists (the distinction can be important) are anti-HR. I was appointed to a bushfire risk management committee to represent a legally recognised conservation group. But the FCO went all the way to the Minister to block my appointment, apparently on the basis that as a rep for the environment movement, and what’s worse, as someone academically and professionally qualified in fire ecology and planning, I might get in the way of the FCO’s planned HRs. He wasn’t successful in blocking my appointment and was soon shocked to see me recommend even more HR burns than were proposed by the RFS. This wasn’t raised in the ‘Professor’s’ article, but it is important to recognise that at least in some vegetation types, burning is necessary for ecological purposes irrespective of HR goals. You can get the two objectives to coincide but you may come up against resource limitations and the aforementioned weather and related air quality constraints. In some parts of Sydney you can also meet resistance from residents who object to the smoke and the appearance of burnt bushland. Road managers can also raise serious objections if traffic flow will be effected by e.g. smoke across the road.
I suspect it is these sort of objections that in part fuel the anti-environmentalist ravings of the media’s redneck fringe. But the ‘Professor’ is spot-on regarding the real source of the anti-environmentalist sentiment seen in the ‘greenies are to blame’ articles.
How about some credit being given to the scientists and environmentalist groups who have been lobbying for serious action to address climate change! Unless we deal with that effectively (at a global scale), the recent heatwave, on-going drought, and associated fires will become all too normal.
At the same time, those who seek to blame ‘greenies’ for the severity of the Vic fires should be held to account for why they oppose real action on climate change. Don’t their arguments conflict? Of course they do, but seeing that requires thinking, and the anti-environmentalism ‘journalists’ (hatemongers in the words of Media Watch) aren’t big on thinking. None of them are qualified or experienced in fields relevant to those that they claim authority in e.g. fire management or climatology etc. They’re just the textual version of shock-jocks. They’re paid to write outrageous articles that stir up controversy which….increases sales and profile for their boss’s newspaper. They’re nasty but they’re just doing their jobs. The problem is that their editors and our media regulators let them get away with saying things that, were they in the context of matters involving say race or disability, would likely see the authors and editors in court. Now there’s an idea… how about a class action by peak environment groups against the media hatemongers on the grounds of defamation. Key limitation - the hatemongers don’t name names - they generalise - as usual. The price of democracy?
9 Phil // Feb 19, 2009 at 12:00 pm
As much as people use the excuse, I don’t think we can blame this thinking on Christianity Steve, that’s misused as much as the concept of Aboriginal fire. The Biblical idea of humans ‘ruling’ the earth was that unlike any other species, we weren’t here to compete for survival but to ensure that the others survived. We take our terminology for “Prime Minister” for instance from the Biblical expression - ‘minister’ means servant. The one in charge is there to serve the others. This was why Old Testament laws said that no one should own land - owners would think that they were allowed to do what they liked with it without regard for its welfare. The economy was consistently given a lower priority than the environment and social justice.
Unfortunately, we have some rot in our own culture which is to blame. Until we recognise it and take responsibility, hard working fire practitioners will continue to get the blame for incidents like this. It can do things to a person if they hear often enough that they are responsible for 200 deaths.
10 Ross // Feb 19, 2009 at 6:25 pm
As a long serving fire practitioner, I raise my leaking drip torch and tip my old battered fire helmet to the Prof.
He has hit every nail on the head regarding the prescribed burn debate and has described the mental giants who are advocating this dangerous, single line of fire mitigation to a tee.
Well done lad.
11 allan kessing // Feb 19, 2009 at 7:32 pm
The best (only) article I’ve read thus far on this matter.
Especially the point that it is not a factual , barely even a political, debate but a MORAL PANIC which is usually defined as one in which opinion/belief/phantasy are the parameters, not fact or reality.
12 Greg // Feb 20, 2009 at 10:06 am
Great essay Prof.
Just got back from 3 weeks on the Jingera Rock fire NW of Eden.
The scenario was the same as the Timbillica Fire of November 1980 where an ignition west of the highway burnt out 40,000 hectares of logged forest in an afternoon. At Jingera a big effort was put in to keep it at 2400 ha and stop the fire getting in to the 1200 hectares of 600 tonnes per hectare of logging slash across the road from it and firestorming out to the coast on Saturday 7/2/09 (Google the modis rapidfire NASA image of the day to put it in perspective).
After the 1980 fire Forestry employed me to implement the Eden District Fuel Management Plan. We had a crew of four and a helicopter to burn up to 36,000 hectares of southeast forest each year. We were successful in doing this for 10 years, and in that time there were no large wildfires of more than a couple of thousand hectares. The 1983 Ash Wednesday fires were also stopped as they came over the border into Eden District.
The Forest EISs of the early 1990’s rightly found that the environmental and social impacts of such broadscale burning programs were unacceptable and the policy was changed. However, the fact remains that the Southeast Forests are some of the most fire prone on the planet.
On the wall of the RFS office in Armidale NSW there is a large oblique aerial image of a farmhouse sitting in a paddock next to a forest that extends back as far as the eye can see. In the photo everything apart from the homestead and 10 metres around its perimeter has been scorched black and consumed by bushfire. It highlights the fact that hazard reduction burning in a forest 30 kilometres away is not going to save an asset. What will save that asset is fire protection work done within 20 metres of the asset.
Broadscale hazard reduction burning and protection of assets from bushfire are two separate issues requiring different policies.
The Belimbla Fire that threatened Nerrigundah NSW over 7-8/2/09 burnt about 1,000 ha of forest (see Belimbla pics on ABC web site). It started by a ‘natural’ cause (lightning) and was eventually put out ‘naturally’ by rain. It is interesting to note that the spread of this ‘natural’ fire would have been contained by traditional burning along the Aboriginal pathway that runs from Bendethera, along High Ridge (between the fire and Nerrigundah) and into the Belowra Valley. Where the pathway drops into Belowra Valley there is an outlier (some say planted crop) of Burrawang (Macrozmia) palms - an Indigenous food source traditionally managed and protected by applied fire. So maybe there is a truth in using the Indigenous burning model for broadscale burning and save the asset protection hazard reduction for the assets.
13 Robert // Feb 22, 2009 at 12:30 pm
The irony of a pro-environmentalist criticising others with opposing views for using celebrities without knowledge of their subject such as Germaine Greer and yet these same environmentalists trot out their own celebrities when they are prepared to use their influence in the media to promote their causes such as anti pulp mill, anti logging (anti anything for that matter).
14 Robert // Feb 22, 2009 at 8:50 pm
Professor’s article is interesting but more polemic than factual. Perhaps he needs a lesson in Fire Managment 101 as I am not sure what factual information his opinions are based on.
You can influence the effect of wildfires in large contiguous forests by controlling fuel levels. The prof essentially claims that it is unrealistic to implement controlled landscape burning in cooler months to reduce fuel levels because the resources don’t exist and it is an unattainable goal. Yet, in the recent past there has been fuel management on a landscape scale that was effective and my point is well illustrated in WA by the low fire occurrence there compared to the eastwern States. WA has regular dry summers, a comparable fire weather to Victoria and large areas of flammable forest and would thus be expected to have fire frequencies similar to Victoria. However, in 1955, prescribed burning in the forest areas changed from mainly burning firebreaks and buffer strips to braodcast burning throughtout the forest and by 1960 around 130,000 ha were burnt annually. After the Dwellingup fires in 1961, there were large changes in the areas prescribed burnt and the whole State forests were brought under rotational prescribed burning designed to keep fuels in strategic areas at a low level. The burning up to the early 1990s covered an annual area of some 330,000 ha or 18% of the native forest area. The only major wildfire in that time, which burnt karri forests in 1969 occurred in some of the then-remaining areas of heavy fuels which had not been brought under the prescribed burning program. A study by Andrew Buckly of into the major 1988 wildfire at Bemm River East Gippsland showed clearly that the effectiveness of previous fuel reduction burning modified the fire behaviour by reducing crown scorch and limited the spread of the fire. The enquiry into the January 1994 fires in New South Wales clearly showed that of the 810,000 ha burnt, less than 69,000 ha was on State forest. The 78 fires that started on State forest burnt an average of 818 ha - a significantly lower area than that for fires starting on National Parks. It was reported that 33 of those fires (42%) were easier to suppress, even under extreme fire weather conditions, because of previous hazard reduction burning. The enquiry concluded that the January bushfires impacted most seriously on land where fuel loads had been allowed to build up to dangerous levels. The same inquiry reported that in the 11 years prior to the 1994 fires, an average of just under 100,000ha of State forerst was broadcast burnt annually. I don’t have the figures for the previous 20 years but I do know that the annual average was much higher. At the 2003 bushfire, Phil Cheney ex-CSIRO and regarded as one of Australia’s foremost experts on bushfire management, told the inquiry that there has been a shift from fire management by land agencies to emergency response agancies. “There has been a shift towards a more suppression orientated approach rather than putting the primary response on the land manager. At the same inquiry, Tasmania reported that they were doing 50% less burns than 10 years previously and that the build uip of fuel levels was the primary and significant contributing factor in the escalation of severe fires in Australia since the Ash Wednesday fires.
(to be cont’d).
15 Phil // Feb 23, 2009 at 10:17 am
A few points Robert:
1) The prof has not claimed that a prescribed burning program is unrealistic. On the contrary he has highlighted just how much effort is currently being put into this, but has made the very reasonable statement that the scale of burning required to prevent what happened in Victoria is beyond us.
2) It is not legitimate to apply fuel management that has been used in dry sclerophyll or arid environments to Mountain Ash and rainforest.
3) It is irrelevant to state that less State Forest was burnt than NP in the 1994 Sydney fires. State Forests cover less of the area, and while National Parks are used as areas for backburns, State Forests are defended vigorously as assets. It’s like saying that less petrol stations were burnt than National Park land, therefore petrol isn’t flammable.
4) Fuel accumulates very quickly in Ash forests. I don’t have the figures handy for E. regnans, but mature E. delegatensis (smaller trees producing less litter) accumulate more than 6 t/Ha in year 1 and nearly 11 t/Ha by year 2 (See Raison’s work). The FFDIs around Kinglake and Marysville were around 150 on the day they were burnt, the average slope about 20 degrees. If the entire area had been burnt the year before, according to the McArthur Meter the 6t/Ha would have produced nearly 60m high flames spreading at 4.5 km/h. Project Vesta states that the McArthur Meter under-predicts extreme fire behaviour, so it may have given an even higher figure.
5) The Bemm River report you quote concluded that: “hazard reduction resulting from prescribed burning in the fuel types which rapidly reaccumulate will be very short lived.” It also stated that for the much milder conditions of the Bemm River fire, prescribed burning would only be effective if at least half of the area had been prescribe burnt.
According to the Bemm River report you cited and the McArthur approach to fire behaviour you have based your arguments on, to prevent Black Saturday from happening again by burning more, we need to burn more than half of the Ash forests more often than annually.
Have you really thought this through fully?
16 Carole // Feb 24, 2009 at 6:55 am
Given that a large percentage of fires are lit by arsonists, perhaps we should be looking into ways of reducing arson attacks? Perhaps if the crime of arson was taken more seriously (ie ranked with manslaughter and murder), more effort would be put into catching arsonists would be caught. The majority of fires are deliberately lit - either by arsonists or as hazard reduction or annual “burn-offs” that have got out of control.
Let’s look at ways of dealing with those aspects we CAN control - it would make a huge difference to the number of fires and the damage they cause.
And are we seriously expected to believe that Aborigines (who travelled on foot) burnt out vast tracts of land which would have risked not only destroying their food source but also put their own lives at risk?
17 Professor Poongschtock // Feb 24, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Very good point!! It should also be noted that arson invariably occurs on the worst possible days ie. when it will do the most damage. Depending on the season arson can constitute between a quarter and two-thirds of all fires during any given season (in January 1994 in Sydney it was 60%). These fires are not natural and must be considered in the greater equation of burning potentially vast areas of the landscape in hazard reduction burning programs.
And a short note on Robert’s use of the term ‘pro-environmentalist’ I find it interesting how people can use this term and ‘greenie’ as though it were meant to be an insult. It’s worth remembering that those among us who might call ourselves ‘greenie’ or ‘conservationist’ are not proposing actions that we are likely to obtain any direct benefit from other than the prospect of living in a cleaner place with healthy ecosystems that will provide for our species collectively over the very longer term. the real beneficiaries of greenieness will be our kids and their kids - AND YOUR KIDS!. Those who condemn conservationists invariably have a more direct self interest - jobs, industrial development, real estate development, unfettered, uncontrolled access for pleasure. My views on fire management are motivated by a desire to ensure that we are managing the landscape in a way that is sustainable as well as safe. Nothing more. Hopefully my great grandkids will have benefited and learnt about how better to manage the landscape by then because our forebears certainly did not.
18 Dr Marty Branagan // Feb 24, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Some great discussion in here. One thing that’s only lightly touched on though, is the fact that we’re very likely getting these extremes of temperature and droughts that exacerbate fires because of global warming. For example, the clearing of so much forest in WA is believed to have added to drought over east, because those forests’ former role in recycling rain no longer occurs.
So, any actions that further add to global warming - more clearing of forests, or greater rates of burning - are liable to continue the spiral upwards into warmer temperatures. This in turn would lead to more fire-prone conditions.
Let’s look instead at dugouts and fire-proof shelters and fire-proofing homes as alternatives, and work to reduce climate change.
19 Simon // Feb 24, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Lovely to read what I thought might be the truth.
Increasingly this world seems to need a culprit, if their not there in front of you, maybe another royal commission will smoke them out for public disgrace. Arson aside these fires are not the fault of specific idealogy more extremes of nature. I have been sceptical of the offensive accusations made by people with too much voice to fit a brain in their head
Well written and thankyou
20 Ross // Feb 24, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Robert,
In your well written article above I would be pleased to hear what you consider to be “dangerous levels” and “low levels” in terms of fuel loads.
21 Robert // Feb 25, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Firstly in reply to Phil:
1). The scale of implementing a fuel program is not unattainable. And I gave my specific example from WA to make that point. It has to do with the will to do the work. It is recognised that even in areas which have had their fuels reduced, this will not (and never was) designed to prevent wildfires under extreme conditions. However, fuel reduction will reduce fire intensity, slow the rate of spread and reduce damage caused. And when fire conditions are moderate, or are not as severe, fuel reduced areas provide opportunities to stop fires or increase the chances of eventual successful suppression. Something that is not being achieved 3 weeks after Feb 7 despite some favourable weather conditions. Access is also a problem with a lack of firetrails in some areas.
2). I agree that it can be problematic to apply any form of regular hazard reduction in wet sclerophyll and mixed forests. But if we allow assets to be located so close to a hazard, then we need to manage that hazard. Wet sclerophyll forests, are after all a disclimax community trying in hardest under the climatic conditions (relative high rainfall, favourable aspect etc) to reach a climax (ie in our case rainforest). But on the less favourable aspects within these forests (drier exposed ridges facing SW, W and NW) exists dry sclerophyll forest. It is these areas that fuel needs to be managed. That way a broad landscape burn under cooler favourable conditions will provide a mosaic of burnt and unburnt patches as fuel moisture differential will dictate where the fire goes. This may sound simplistic, but I can’t really write a full chapter on this on a blog site.
3). At the time of the 1994 NSW fires, the area of State Forest was 3.5 million ha and National Parks was 2.5 million ha therefore trying to equate the areas managed by each organisation by comparing to today’s figure is a disingenuous attempt to discredit my valid point. Also I don’t know why you have used the term “backburn” as it is a form of wildfire control not fuel management.
4). Your point under this section and concluding comments claim that I said we can prevent Black Fridays fires. I never made that claim and again refer you to my comments under point 1 above where I make the point that broadscale fuel reduction burning is not designed to prevent wildfires nor is it totally effective under extreme conditions such as those experienced on Feb 7 but it does change the intensity of the fire, slows its rate f spread where the fire ceases to crown and can reduce the damge it causes.
5). The last paragraph in my copy of the Bemm River study says “As part of an integrated fire prevention and suppression program, fuel reduction remains a key element in the protection of human life, private property and the forest itself.”
So Phil the real question of whether I have thought this through fully, should be asked of yourself.
22 Robert // Feb 25, 2009 at 6:45 pm
Secondly in reply to Professor:
I have no hidden agendas and like you my desire is to ensure that we are managing the landscape in a way that is sustainable as well as safe. I have dedicated my professional working life to achieving that goal. I just disagree with you that by allowing fuel levels over large contiguous areas of forest to build up to levels which preclude any form of safe defence when you know that the potential for severe fire weather can occur every year, is not meeting the criteria for a safe environment. Somehow thought I think we are on the same wavelength, we just have different views on how it can be achieved.
23 Phil // Feb 26, 2009 at 11:54 am
Thanks for your thoughts Robert. I’ll address your points as you have them laid out:
1) No one has yet disagreed that implementing a fuel management program is unattainable; let’s agree on that as it is already being done in SE Australia. The point the Prof made and I have reiterated is that it is not possible for any such program to prevent such events as Black Saturday, therefore it is not reasonable to blame land managers for the deaths of the 200+ people. At my point 4 and conclusion I went through the maths of what would be required to achieve this. You haven’t addressed the science I presented, you have simply re-stated your earlier points. I put it to you that by McArthur’s modelling, the reduction in fire intensity that even a 1-year old burn could achieve on Black Saturday would not have been enough to allow direct attack of those fires and stop those lives being lost. This is the operative question; unless someone can refute this then the Prof’s point stands - it is completely indefencible to blame land managers for the loss of life.
The latter part of your point is good. It is during the quiet after Black Saturday that ideally, a fuel management program would have enabled the fire to be contained so that the current threat to Enoch Point would not exist. However, crews working on the Dray Track control line last weekend were pulled off the line due to dangerous fire behaviour at 2 in the morning. Consequently they were unable to complete their backburn and the fire crossed the line. Would more burning have prevented this? I can’t give a definite answer as I don’t know the fire history, but as the control line was well within forestry land I can only assume from your earlier comments about forestry vs. conservation land that it probably was being managed with regular fire. The lack of firetrails is also a forestry issue as it is their land, but keep in mind that maintaining trails in steep mountain country and flat WA country are two differnt things, so take it easy on them.
2. I basically agree here. Again, no one is objecting to burning off the dry sclerophyll forests; whether that is achieved through the broadscale approach you describe or through a more controlled means is an operational matter for the practitioners to decide.
3. I’ll take your word on the relative areas of State Forest & NP in 1994 - I wasn’t deliberately disingenuous but I’m happy to take your word that I had wrong numbers. As for the backburning point - I am talking about backburning during an incident, not prescribed burning. In my experience, I have seen many thousands of Ha of NP consumed in backburns during fires to save a couple of hundred Ha of forestry land. I have not seen the reverse happen. Consequently, fire boundaries so often follow NP boundaries.
4. As we are agreed on this point, I’m not sure what your contention is. We agree that prescribed burning in certain forest types helps reduce fire intensity under a range of conditions, but that it would not have helped prevent Black Saturday. It would not have saved the lives that were lost. For the sake of those land managers who have unjustly been saddled with the blame for this horrific event, let’s get the word out there: it wasn’t their fault, more burning would not have made the difference. As for those forestry areas where they are currently unable to contain the fire, I would be hesitant to say “they should have burnt more” until we know how much they do burn, and whether fire promotes dense bracken etc in those forests as it does in the Mountain Ash.
5) Once again, at no point has anyone disagreed with that statement. The question has never been “burn or don’t burn”, it is “could we possibly have burnt enough to stop Black Saturday from happening.” We have agreed that the answer is no.
I can’t really think of any smart snappy way to finish Robert, but I do ask that you be careful in responding to events like this by saying “they should have burnt more.” If burning more could not have saved those lives then the argument is irrelevant and only serves to inflame the Miranda Devine type lunatic fringe. People like yourself that understand the situation need to help educate the community on the realities and limits of prescribed fire so that they don’t go and put their next house in an indefencible position.
24 Robert // Feb 26, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Hi Phil. We both agree that nothing, under those weather conditions could have prevented a fire from starting or occurring. We cannot control the weather (despite what some people think but let’s not go there) nor can we control ignitions (eventhough we would all love to do something about the arson problem). However the point I am at pains to make is that we could have prevented such a large area from crowning and spotting and devastating such a large area in one large event (ditto in Victoria in 2002/3 and 2006). Fuel reduction burning may (I am not saying definitely) have reduced the intensity of this fire and reduced its spread and thus less area burnt before conditions allowed firefighters to gain control. At no point have I placed blame on the land managers, quite the contrary as a lot of them are my contemporaries and I know how devastated they are to see not only the lives and houses lost, but the areas of forest that have been so severely and unnaturally burnt. A few have expressed outrage to me about how this is allowed to happen.
Also I have never claimed fuel reduction allows for direct attack. In fact I believe it is criminal that we expect the emergency services to stand anywhere near the firefront of a crowning fire and try and save houses, nor should homeowners be encouraged to do the same. The only place for people in that situation is the beach.
I put it to you Phil that when a decision is made not to burn a forest area to reduce fuels there is currently no legal requirement to consider that decision in ecological terms in the same way managers have to review environmental impacts for all planned burns. Believe it or not but not burning has an environmental impact. Also no-one is held accountable for that decision. Personally I feel very sick when the politicians use the aftermath of a big fire to reassure people that they are there to help them and maximise the kudos. But when the tough decisions are required on fuel reduction works outside the fire season they don’t like the negative views and shy away from accepting the consequence of not carrying out the work. We saw the consequences of that reality in brutal fashion on Feb 7.
In my copy of Raison et al (1983) it takes 2.3 years to reach 8t/ha after a fire in E.dele forest and 4 years to reach 12t/ha but that is semantics. I don’t question your figures I just don’t agree that we should be fatalisitic and use the excuse that on a very severe fire weather day, which can occur every 7 or so years, there is nothing we can do to manage a fire which starts under those conditions.
Finally having worked for both National Parks and Forestry agencies on incident mangement teams for both, I am unaware of large areas of National Parks being burnt under a backburn, rather than the wildfire itself, to “save” State forest areas but I will take your word for it as I have not been involved in the mainland fires in the last 10 years. But if you had specific examples I would like to find out more as that point intrigues me.
I am happy to be involved in education of the masses. My personal opinion is that eucalypt trees and houses don’t mix so if a decision is made to allow housing in a “green belt” then it must become brown - no compromises. But I am also a pramatic person and people have to live somwhere. People will have their rural residential place that adjoins a National Park or a State forest. We need to decide whether risking the lives of those people and their assets is more or less important than allowing the fires nature wants.
25 Phil // Feb 27, 2009 at 10:05 am
G’day Robert, I’m glad we seem to be coming to some sort of agreement in some areas; but it seems that you’re sticking to your guns in some other areas without offering a reason to support your stance.
At one point you said: “when the tough decisions are required on fuel reduction works outside the fire season they [politicians] don’t like the negative views and shy away from accepting the consequence of not carrying out the work [prescribed burning]. We saw the consequences of that reality in brutal fashion on Feb 7. You state here clearly that you believe Feb 7 was a direct consequence of a lack of prescribed burning. I demonstrated that even with burning the year before, according to McArthur and the rate of fuel accumulation (taken from Raison, Woods & Khanna 1986, fig.6), flame height on the Saturday would have been 60m in the Ash. I need to ask again, just how much precribed burning do you think they should be doing? True, less fuel in the dry forest patches may possibly have reduced the area burnt, although this is doubtful under such conditions also. It’s possible my maths is wrong, I’m happy to be corrected; but if it’s not I don’t think it’s right to say that more burning would have prevented Feb 7. That’s not fatalistic, it’s accepting facts of nature. A fire burning Mountain Ash at an FFDI of 150 can’t be stopped, a cyclone cannot be diverted, really bad droughts dry up rivers and you can’t dive under a tsunami. Not fatalism, realism. We’re not God.
On a couple of other points:
- it’s pretty unanimously recognised that the main impact of fire on wildlife in the mountains is via frequency more than intensity.
I know that in the NSW National Parks the decision not to burn is subject to exactly the same decision tool as the decision to burn - fire frequency thresholds. If the threshold says the bush needs fire no more often than every 10 years and no less often than every 40, then country that is getting close to the 40 year mark is identified and strategies are developed to examine whether to burn it deliberately, allow natural fire to burn out parts of it or whether there are no species being lost and it should just be left alone.
Good talking again Robert.
26 Berris Feuller // Feb 27, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Keep up the good work Phil. Makes for interesting reading, what with Robert chipping in his forthright views to counter. Don’t for one minute believe though that this all has not been said before - some time ago. As Robert said in one of his earlier opinion pieces, reading written history carefully (objectively?) would suggest that the arguments presented here have all been had before. Thats the problem we face - agreeing to disagree. Shame they could not have found a better outcome than agreeing to disagree immediately post-1939 since we may not have been suffering so badly 70 years later. Thats not to say we could have prevented this recent tragic event, only that we could have made some wiser choices along the way. Justice Stretton, presiding over the 1939 bushfires, concluded that “everybody and nobody was to blame”. I daresay that history will repeat that statement in the near future.
I reiterate - good on you Phil and Robert. Its good to vent the spleen, even if nothing ever changes.
Berris
27 Robert Evans // Feb 28, 2009 at 9:00 am
As a professional Firefighter/Firelighter (Hazard Reduction) of 40+ years I would like to make just two observations (at this stage) regarding this story.
Firstly, the bushfire research incorporated in the Phil Zylstra `A fire history of the Australian Alps’ was paid for by the ones most accused of being responsible for the disastrous fuel loads associated with most bushfires today, and it would appear that Philip himself works for one of those bodies. Would this not enhance the `possibility’ that a `favourable slant’ be achieved regarding interpretation of the data, no matter what the data was actually saying?
For instance, Zylstra’s own research using Dendrochronology (tree ring dating) said that the sites with the most frequent fire prior to European settlement were burnt approx every 10 years. I imagine these `sites’ to have been ridgetops, as this is where most lightning strikes occurr. From this I would conclude that at intervals of approx 10 years, most of the ridgtops throughout the alps would have been hazard reduced.
Contrast this with the situation today where most of these ridges haven’t been burnt for anything up to 70+ years, and you can appreciate the destructiveness of these modern `man-made’ conflagrations where virtually nothing survives.
Point two I would like to raise is the effectiveness of Hazard Reduction Burning, where the author states: it `might’ help on an average day, but will do nothing on a very extreme one’.
I have witnessed crown fires immediately go to ground on extreme days when they hit `patchy’, (and supposedly usleless) areas that were hazard reduced twelve months earlier. I can show you actual areial photographs of GREEN trees in a sea of brown scorched ones where hazard reduction wasn’t carried out prior to catastrophic wldfires. To say hazard ruduction does nothing on extreme days is `extreme’ ignorance of the facts.
Like Zylstra I too have an `axe to grind’ as I work for an organisation that was the primary bushfire fighting land manager for over 100 years prior to Volunteers & the creation of National Parks & Reserves. This organisation relies on keeping trees ALIVE so they can become useful primary products.
A ten year hazard reduction cycle on ridge tops throughout the Alps would prevent the inexorable shift towards montain herb fields & grasses that I believe will be the long term result of current management practices.
28 Phil // Feb 28, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Re. Robert Evans comments - your first point is a possibility. However if this report is to be disregarded as it was written by someone working for a conservation agency, it stands to reason that your comments as a forester are also slanted. If we also consider the reality that the killer Feb 7 fires were burning mainly through forestry land, then there is actually some considerable pressure on you to divert the blame to another land management agency. So how do we get around this predicament? By relying on circumstantial possibilities like that, we are doing nothing more than playing the politics the Prof. was describing. I suggest we stick to facts.
The figures quoted in the Fire History were taken from the work of John Banks at the ANU (not connected with any agency) and a couple of others including a study by the forester Pryor in 1939 after fire burnt through the Brindabellas and impacted Canberra. If you examine the original studies, you’ll see that there were not “sites” burnt at 10 yearly intervals, there was one single site and it was not on top of any ridge but halfway up a spur. This site was the exception, not the rule.
Now it is quite possible that various ridges were burnt at 10 yearly intervals as well, but the only evidence there is (fire scars, charcoal deposits, observations & Aboriginal oral tradition) suggests that these would have been uncommon and had very localised burning as opposed to broad-scale. As limited as this evidence might be it is still consistent and has nothing whatsoever to refute it except your theory, which as you have said is something you “imagine”.
Your observations on the fire ground are interesting and worth taking notice of. To be unbiased though, you also need to take notice of those instances when that doesn’t happen. Fortunately for this discussion, we have just such an occurrence that was part of Black Saturday, so we can compare the “what might have happened” scenario. The Dargo White Timber Spur fire started on Feb 6 in Alpine Ash (lighter fuels than E. regnans) country that had been burnt 6 years earlier and spread into 3 year old fuels. Whereas the Mountain Ash fires burnt in FFDIs of around 150, the higher altitude of this fire meant that the FFDI was much lower - mostly around the 20 mark but in the windiest areas in the high 40’s. On the morning of Feb 7, the fire had burnt 30 Ha. By the end of the day it had burnt 12,790 Ha. All fuels were well within the 10 year range that you imagined would fix things, but what as the outcome? Any Ash stands within the burnt area are now gone for good - not just burnt and ready to regrow from seed, but actually extinct from the area because the saplings had been re-burnt before they had matured.
It’s fair to say that sometimes a year-old burn will put a crown fire to ground - in some forest types, in some terrains. But how well does it do against an FFDI of 150 for the other 9 years until the next HR? No one is saying that prescribed burning should not be carried out. What I am saying is that we are not living in the real world if we think more burning would have stopped what happened on Feb 7. Have a read through my previous posts. When you can address the fact that McArthur’s science says that it would not have worked, that all the evidence says that Aboriginal people didn’t do it, and that we have a big example on the same day demonstrating that it didn’t work, then let us know what you think. Until then you’re welcome to your opinion but you need to accept that all you have is personal dogma and very limited observation in the face of solid, consistent evidence. Just be careful, you want to have something more if you’re going to blame people for 210 deaths.
29 Robert // Mar 1, 2009 at 6:32 pm
Phil we are not saying prescribed burning will stop fires such as Feb 7 from starting. We are arguing that prescribed burning helps in mitigating their effect, particularly when conditions ease - which they eventually do - you don’t get 100+ km/hr winds, humidity <10% and temps over 40 degrees day in day out. Robert Evans speaks from his 40+ years of experience of fighting fires. I speak from my 21 years of fighting fires, watching fires, studying weather, planning and implementing prescribed burning. We have an intuitive feel and respect for the power of the flame. We don’t carry out one off studies, nor do we read one off studies to base our knowledge and opinion. Its like reading the health magazines or the paper which says that one study found eating chocolate causes cancer and another says it is beneficial for your health in moderation. Today’s ecological studies on the efficacy of burning are one off assuming that long unburnt areas which are the “control” are in a “natural” state. They never consider the bigger picture.
We are reponsible for the lives of firefighters , people and their assets in the decisions we make. We cannot afford to base our decisions on work by non-practictioners such as Zyltstra because we know that dendro work never could and never will detect the low intensity burns. The late John Banks as the foremost authority on dendro work , and my former lecturer admitted this to me when I had extensive discussions with him on his work in the Brindabellas.
So Phil you can base your argument on a piece of work that hangs its head on a cockies form of hot unseasonal burns but fails to detect the amount of low intensity burns that actually occurred in the Alps over the years. And Berris Feuller can quote how explorers struggled to trek through swmapy or riverine thickets but I, as someone who has read and travelled in a lot of country the explerers travelled in, knows that away from rivers, swamps and creeks they went through open country.
You and Fueller believe strategic hazard reduction has a place. I say it is a waste of time. We need broadscale fuel reduction programs.
Just think of this. Australia is blessed with a lot of marsupials. What do they feed on? Evergreen and mesic shrubs, now found in a lot of our forests or grasses now only found as improved pastures in previous woodlands and the native grasses if they still exist?
We need to stop and think very hard about the ecologial balance we have now created in our forests because they ain’t what they used to be.
30 Phil // Mar 2, 2009 at 9:16 am
Robert(s), I know you’re not saying that prescribed burning would stop such fires from starting, but your statement that “prescribed burning helps in mitigating their effect, particularly when conditions ease - which they eventually do …” is not relevant to our discussion of Feb 7 unless you are suggesting that there was a time between 1130 and 1800 (start of Kilmore East & burning of Marysville) where you could have stopped the fire. Conditions did not ease during that time so let’s not go around in circles on that one any more eh?
Thankyou for addressing one of the points I listed. You are mostly right - generally speaking Eucalypts don’t scar from low intensity fires, however John Banks was adamant that due to their thin bark, Snowgums do scar irrespective of fire intensity. This has since been investigated at Piccadilly Circus in the ACT, where the CSIRO have been burning Snowgums in different ways now for many decades. Rochelle Richards (Tassie Forester) found that fire intensity had no bearing whatsoever on whether Snowgums scarred. The outcome? Dendro work done by Banks, Pryor & others on Snowgums is rock solid - frequent broadscale burning was not part of Aboriginal fire management in the Snowies.
I’m very tempted to try to answer your generalisations and wrong guesses, but I think this discussion is going around in circles and I’m probably best to bow out. I respect your experience, but I can only encourage you to consider the evidence and don’t be too worried about winning the argument. It’s been good talking to you, thanks.
31 Berris Feuller // Mar 2, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Hi Robert. Like Phil I support the notion that you seem to have a fairly strange take on matters but I guess thats what makes this country so special. Your views on the poor state of forest fauna health seem to be from a textbook that nobody has ever written nor ever will. I maintain that your take on what the bush looked like prior to European arrival is a tainted Eurocentric one. Trouble is you are working on the equivalent of a belief system and thats fine. At the end of the day opinions and beliefs are like backsides (ie. everbody has one). At the end of the day I wish you good fortune in pushing your beliefs but I am not sure conversations in cyberspace will get you across the line. Your views certainly are proof positive that you can take the forestry degree out of the boy but you can’t take the forestry degree out of the man. Au revoir.
32 Bronson // Mar 2, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Phil,
it always interesting to see how people ignore the elephant in the lounge room - lightning. Every year there are thousands of lightning stirkes across south eastern Australia from about October through to March. These result in hundreds of fires. Regardless of Aboriginal burning there was already a significant fire load across the SE. Pre European these fires would have burnt unhindered accross the landscape until weather, moisture differentials between veg types or old fuel reduced burn scars were met. The pre European landscape would have been a mosaic of lightning burn scars and any Aboriginal burning would have simply added to this existing mosaic. Europeans with their farms and houses sought to excluded fire to protect assets and at the same time introduced very different fire regiemes on much smaller scales than the previous landscape lightning fire scale for asset protection, clearing and promotion of green pick for stock. As a result the landscape seen today and used as a control in the very small burn plots that pass as experiments is very different to the pre European landscape. Inevitably the control is taken as the desirable state and the changes in the burnt plots assessed as negatives. Thus the condition of the current landscape is re-enforced as the acceptable norm. The consequence of this is a uniform fuel age accross the landsape that begins to act as single unit in its response to fire. So far on the evidence we have been pretty good at converting most of our landscape to single fuel ages through major bushfire events. If this is the desired out come for the landscape then simply continue the current fire management regiemes concentrating on suppression and small scale asset protection burns. If however a more dispersed (both temporally and spacially) and varied fuel age is sought accross the landscape then a major change from current practices is required at the landscape scale of management.
33 Greg // Mar 3, 2009 at 4:09 pm
…a good opportunity to put in another plug for my Indigenous Burning Model.
The Belimbla Fire west of Nerrigundah NSW on 7.2.09 was started ‘naturally’ by a lightning strike and was put out ‘naturally’ by rain. The area where the fire occurred is a lightning-prone area and many fires have started and burned through this country over history, usually on a cycle associated with prolonged drought and dry storms.
The run of this ‘natural’ fire was contained within the boundaries of country that would have been regularly and frequently burned under the Indigenous Burning Model reported elsewhere on this site.
The Indigenous Burning Model provides a mosaic of frequently burned ridges and river valleys around tracts of less frequently but more intensely burned forest across the landscape.
34 Robert // Mar 3, 2009 at 8:30 pm
Unfortunately Phil and Ferris Bueller are trying to assert a moral authority on this debate because they come from an academic background (and I won’t touch on the offensive comment by Fueller about a Forestry degree). They believe winning a debate or argument with someone can be achieved by asserting a stronger scientific argument. But science is dynamic. Scientific thought is constantly challenged. For example is has long been held that Prof Jacksons ecological drift model explained the vegetation community distribution in SW Tassie. However recent work (not yet published) by David Bowman challenges that model and may have proof that the buttongrass moorlands may have existed prior to Aborigines and that soil is the main determinant of what vegetation occurs where, not fire.
Just because one particular study by Zylstra comes up with the notion that asserts Aborigines did not burn in snow gums in the Alps, doesn’t mean absolute certitude on this issue.
Frankly I don’t have time to write Fuella-like essays on this, but I do make the time to challenge academics attempt to own the issue and to drive its agenda.
For example Phil tried to say that because he can read a McArthur Meter and estimate the fire behaviour based on the weather conditions experienced on Feb 7 he can then claim his logic is indisputable. However, intrinsic to his argument was that the uniform slope of the forest was 20 degrees. It is not. There a flat ridges, spurs saddles etc etc. According the the McArthur Meter under those same conditions on flat ground the fire is not crowning if the fuel levels are less than 10 t /ha. Bear in mind the meter is based on dry sclerophyll fuels. Wet sclerophyll fuels not long after a fire are not easily flammible, hence part of the problem in instituting fuel reduction burns. So, these areas where the fire still burns through but is not crowning can act as refuges for wildlife immediately after the fire (and Fueller this is not part of a belief system) it is part of observable fact.
People in glasshouses………..
35 Phil // Mar 4, 2009 at 10:20 am
Robert, thankyou for addressing another one of the points I raised, I owe you an answer on that. In doing so I want to make it clear that at no point have I suggested that the evidence I have presented is indisputible; quite the opposite. I have presented what evidence I am aware of and specifically asked you to dispute it. That’s why I thanked you for addressing the issue of dendro work and am thanking you again for trying to answer the McArthur Meter issue. I am one person, I make mistakes, my sums may not add up and I may not have read all of the relevant work so I am happy to be corrected as I was on the issue of the relative area of State Forest vs. NP in 1994. This is the beauty of science, it gets us out of arguments about who is smarter, more experienced or more insulting and forces us to focus on reality and the issue at hand. So on the issue of Aboriginal burning you’re right - more evidence may turn up that shows I’m wrong. In that case I’ll be happy to learn something new and become more effective in what I do. In the meantime, the fact remains that all of the evidence we do have says the same thing, we actually have no reason at all to think differently except for the lingering flavour of Australia’s redneck roots.
On the McArthur Meter issue - my words were “It’s possible my maths is wrong, I’m happy to be corrected; but if it’s not I don’t think it’s right to say that more burning would have prevented Feb 7.” You’ve attempted to check it, but the problem with the McArthur Meter itself is that the scale does not go up to 150. No one ever dreamed conditions could get this bad. To find out what happens up there you need to use the equations (Noble, Bary & Gill 1981 I think), but the result is that at an FFDI of 150, crown fire on flat ground is achieved with 4.5 t/Ha or 8 month’s fuel accumulation.
As you say, the meter was intended for dry forests. By contrast, Mountain Ash is very well known for responding to fire by producing bracken. Under ordinary seasons this does make it very difficult to burn; but following 10 years of below average rainfall and 2 consecutive record-breaking heatwaves in the last few weeks, you could imagine that the bracken would probably be dry enough to burn. Certainly, that was the experience of the fire crews working at night after the heatwaves had passed. Bracken by the way is a near-surface fuel and as Project Vesta has pointed out, has far more influence on fire behaviour than the surface fuels that McArthur focuses on.
The fact is Robert, there is no precedent for the conditions of Feb 7. Unless you have seen fire in Mountain Ash under those conditions stopped (not reduced slightly in intensity - slightly smaller flames kill people too) due to prescribed burns at any age between 0 & the 10 year limit you described, then you’re talking through your hat. You have no justification in putting 210 deaths on the heads of those land managers that may not have burnt as often as you would like. You have launched a very serious attack and so far you haven’t produced a shred of evidence to base it on except your assumption “I have more experience than you”. This is not a game, get a grip on your ego.
36 Dr Red Rodgers // Mar 4, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Wonderful article by Poonstock..long been a great fan of his opinion pieces. Look the real issue is whether we think that our concern about some media commentators actually matters - ask yourself, have you ever been able to change someones attitude who is older than 15? Poonstock is inflammed by comments by Germaine Greer……ignorance is seen by most media as a benefit not a problem.
I have known people who have attempetd to bring media to account about the accuracy of their comments. Its almost a pointless exercise. My only request is not to fall into the trap of making exagerated descriptions of rural folk with a “national park over the back fence where they once could ride, shoot, burn and slash their way through the countryside with complete impunity.” This is inaccurate too. Media should be a positive influence and assist those who I witnessed trying to put out flames armed with a bucket, dressed in thongs, shorts and a singlet. Now that is a real problem.
Red
37 Robert // Mar 4, 2009 at 4:55 pm
This debate is getting derailed Phil when you try and accuse me of blaming the land managers of the horrific deaths. I have answered your assertion on this previously.
To summarise - you say that under the weather conditions experienced, nothing could have been done to stop the carnage. For the purposes of this argument I agree that the weather conditions were pretty bad and unique and off the scale. How often are they going to be this bad?
It is all about risk management and fuel reduction burning has a role and I repeat “it is recognised that even in areas which have had their fuel reduced, this will not (and never was) designed to prevent wildfires under extreme conditions. However fuel reduction WILL reduce fire intensity, slow the rate of spread and reduce damage caused in the majority of fire seasons where wildfires occur.” If you want to dispute that, then fine we will have to agree to disagee on that.
But if you ignore this then you will get far more fires that nature wants rather than the fires we want. Read some of Stephen Pyne’s articles to as he reinforces the consequences of that by comparing usa to Nth America who made that decision collectively early last century.
And I reiterate the point I made that there are consequences of deciding not to manage fuels on a braodscale in the forest but of which no-one is held accountable for that decision and nor are they asked to carry out an environmental review of the impact of that decision.
I agree this is certainly not tiddily winks, this is serious. I am responsible for the management of thousands of hectares of forest so this is very real for me. But I don’t sit in an ivory tower passing judgement - I have to live the nightmare if a wildfire effects my area of control.
38 Mark Grist (my real name!) // Mar 4, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Dear Professor Poongschtok ,
You ‘control’ “thousands of hectares of forest”
but do you live in it?
I dont dissagree with much of your backburning defence, but, do not defend the greenies just yet!
Furthermore, your ridicule of the ‘local knowledge’ of farmer - volunteer firefighters needs to take a bloody big backstep mate. Without ‘local knowledge’ fire fighting crews would venture into suicidal regions with no escape route if things go wrong. And without local cow-cockies on the CFA there would be no CFA.
Again, I do not argue with you on back burning. BUT, I do ask why our government authorities (federal, state and local) allow such high levels of fuel to build up on roadside reserves? Roadside reserves, when on fire, prevent safe passage of fleeing residents, and incoming firefighters. I am not trying to defend people who leave late….but how many people perished in the recent fires on the road….because they hit a fallen tree, etc? How many areas did cfa not go into because the roads were not safe? How many areas were still cut off on Sunday 8th and had ‘flare ups’ that the locals dealt with because the cfa etc could not physically get through the roads yet due to fallen timber?
I would be very interested on your thoughts on this…. Please do leave local knowledge alone, it does save lives!
39 Phil // Mar 4, 2009 at 7:43 pm
Thankyou Robert. I’m not looking for agreement on everything, my interest is the argument that Feb 7 could have been stopped by more burning. If we’re in agreement that this is at least very unlikely, then I’d prefer not to continue disagreeing on other issues; perhaps one day we’ll talk face to face then I can hear some more of your thoughts properly.
For your interest I am also a fire manager and fire fighter that has to live with the consequences of my decisions. I research fire because I want to manage it better.
40 Professor Poonschtock // Mar 5, 2009 at 9:41 am
Mark, as regards ‘local knowledge’ - where do I start? I’ll try. I’m not a country boy nor do I regard myself as a city lad. I’m somehwere in between with some not insignificant experience in both. My daughter was born on a three thousand acre sheep property where I lived for three years alongside a family (my landlords) who I watched work very, very hard trying to make a living amidst drought, fire, recession, high interest rates. I was very fond of these people as well as their neighbours and developed a deep respect for their knowledge, ability, strength and understanding of the land they managed. The people I shared this land with were not responsible for the state it was in at the time but they, like many of their neighbours, were trying to rectify the damage. Others of course were not. Frequently in the bushfire debate I hear the term ‘local knowledge’ applied as it it were the ‘only’ knowledge worthy of attention. Frequently I hear that it is ignored. The reality is that neither are true. “Local knowledge’ is vital, absolutely vital to the suppression of and management of fire but it is not necessarily always the ‘only’ way. Furthermore, despite contant claims it is ignored, the point I make about fire suppression is that in general local fire fighters make up the bulk of fire suppression operations and therefore they have a strong influence on how a fire is managed and rightly so. There is however, a frequent conflict between local people adamant they have the knowledge in what needs to be done at a fire and those often from ‘outside’ who are in many cases ‘in control’ of how a fire should be managed. More often than not both are arguing the same case but ego, pride and the other human afflications come into play at these events resulting in claims that local knowledge is ignored. In the old days (not so very long ago actually) fire management rested entirely in the hands of the local fire management officer and the council and local brigades. But now there is a better resourced, fulltime, centralised salaried body of experts in each state where the overwhelming responsibility for control of major fires now rests. When you mix this with the previous model at a fire deep resentments rise to the surface and there is inevitably conflict. Locals claim their knowledge is being ignored and on some occasions that’s probably right but generally in my experience they still hold a critical role in the effective management of a fire even though they might not be controlling the whip hand. A major fire without ‘local knowledge’ would be a recipe for tragedy but the old model did not always prove to be the best one. I have lived with both and have to say that what we have now is a much better resourced, better managed fire fighting army than the one we had previously. Unfortunetly, sadly, inevitably, frustratingly I have seen time and time again the conflict between people at fires representing different interests allowing testosterone, ego and pride (and let’s not forget local politics) get in the way of sensible decisions about how a fire should be fought, with chests being thrust and beaten supposedly in the name of effective fire suppression when it’s really about all the other stuff. Not always but a lot. It’s dumb, dumb, dumb. People need to learn to respect and acknowledge each others abilities, experience and knowledge at fires (and at some fires I have been to this is definitely the case - tehy were good fires, well fought by a team from difefrent agencies and palces). When the fire is over however and we gather for the inevitable inquiry the media loves to quote how ‘local knoweldge was ignored’. And I hear it over and over again and the reality is that somewhere in the middle everyone is to blame for this and that generally local knowledge is not ignored but you wouldn’t think so to read a newspaper.
As regards my somewhat disparaging comments about the impacts of certain land management practises by farmers historically. You know that farms across the country suffer from chronic problems like soil salinity and erosion - it irks me no end to hear from ‘ some’ farmers that they know how to manage the land better than anyone else when they stand in a sea of thistles that dominates a monoculture where once a thriving and diverse community of plants and animals once stood. And somne of these farmers have the gall to say such things to the ranger standing over the other side of the fence in a national park. Local knowledge isn’t always wrong and it isn’t always right and everybody needs to learn to meet in the middle - greenies included. So Mark sorry if I’ve offended you but you can probably read from my article a deep sense of frustration about the hazard reduction debate. I don’t think the real issues are ever actually debated. The public duiscussion about bushfires is unfortunetly frequently over simplified and has become a slanging match between us and them. This is no way to arrive at a sensible solution to the issues. We need to get away from the blame game and start talking about what’s really going on. This is the point I guess that I was trying to make.
As for the debate that has taken place on this site so far - can I make the observation that what has been demonstrated is that clearly, despite so much thought and research, there is not unanimity on fire management highlighting the fact that it is an inexact science and will always be thus. This in turn highlights the absurdity of trying to blame someone for what happened in Victoria as well as canberra in 2003 and all the other bushfire disasters beforehand. Too, too much ego and pride is getting in the way and myth has begun to overwhlem good sense. And can you all just keep the debate a bit more like and old cricket match. Cheers
41 Professor Poonschtock // Mar 5, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Mark, I meant to mention that I am not the person to ask about roadside fuel but the point you raise appears to me to be a very good one. One could be excused for thinking that roadsides have been a bit of a management black hole for sometime but I understand they are the responsibility of various agancies. having said that in many places they are still vital corridors linking bushland areas and allowing the movement of fauna and flora across the landscape so their management should not be a singled minded effort to deal exclusively with the issue of fuel. But the issues you raise clearly require management.
42 Robert // Mar 5, 2009 at 5:09 pm
Phil - sorry to keep going (my last post) but I spent some time last night researching because your claim “that Dendro work on Snowgums shows that frequent broadscale burning was not part of Aboriginal fire management in the Snowies” cannot go unchallenged.
Prior to the study you refer to, the main dendro research on the impacts of the frequency of intense fires were Pulsford et al (1993) on the effects of burning, cattle grazing & rabbits on Callitris in the Snowy River Valley. They demonstrated that the transition from Aboriginal to European land use resulted in the sudden occurrence of fire-damaged tree rings thought to reflect a shift from low intensity to high intensity fires. A similar change in fire regime was inferred from dendro studies in Jarrah forests in SW WA by Burrows et al (1995) and Snow Gums in the Brindabella Ranges by Banks (1988).
In all those studies it was acknowledged that low intensity fires are not registered by dendro analyses (this is confirmed in a discussion with David Bowman yesterday, who is at the forefront on studying landscape change in Australia).
But given the fire-prone environments in which Callitris, Jarrah and Snow Gums occur, the absence of fire scars cannot reasonably be interpreted as an absence of fires.
It is interesting to note that Burrows et al (1995) showed that prior to European settlement the mean time interval between fires that produced fire-damaged tree rings was about 80 years. Following European colonisation, especially after the 1847 Bushfire Ordinance, which sanctioned the flogging of minors and Aborigines who lit fires, the frequency of injurious fires increased to a mean of less than 20 years. I strongly believe that this is due to increased fuel levels, unless of course you can give other plausible explanations.
Therefore the arguments about the Feb 7 disaster should not focus on throwing our hands in the air and saying there was nothing that could be done to stop it, but rather we should focus on what damage can be done to large contiguous areas of forest on bad fire weather days that occur on a more regularly basis each fire season, instead of Feb 7 conditions which occur infrequently. And broadscale fuel reduction burning has a role in finding solutions.
It is unfortunate that at the same time that bushfire fuels are accumulating and drying and fires are becoming more intense, there has been a dismantling of the fire institutions who should be providing leadership. Instead what we see is today’s lead emergency agencies opting out of a pre-emptive approach in favour of a suppression approach. We have no national bushfire policy, nor do I detect the states having any. I only know of Bush Fire Acts and yet one wonders whether there will be legal action taken under those Acts against the state agencies who are failing to meet their common law responsibilities in respect of minimising bushfire risk in the wake of this recent disaster.
43 Phil // Mar 6, 2009 at 7:11 am
Robert, I’m no expert on WA and your theory over there is quite possible. Once again, I’m not suggesting that broadscale or frequent fire is not good management in some areas, the area I’m talking about is the Alps and the Mountain Ash forest and the evidence is still consistent there.
That the increase in scarring was due to more high intensity fires in Pulsford & Bank’s studies is your theory. While Pulsford allows for it as a possibility since the sensitivity of Callitris to scarring is not well studied, Banks did not and you are presenting the wrong picture to suggest that he did.
In the late 19th C record, Pulsford found the trees near Scotchie’s Old Yards scarred in 1870-71, 1875-76, 1878-79, 1882-83 etc. Are you suggesting that the average 4 years between fires here was so infrequent compared to the Aboriginal burning that the fuel loads had built up to sufficient proportions to cause high intensity fire naturally? The 4 years here sound to me more like the nearby Roger’s record of 4-yearly burning. We see similar intervals in the Brindabella & Upper Tooma Snowgums and have to ask ourselves the same questions, especially as we have the same testimony from Brindabella graziers such as the Franklins.
Saying that the long pre-European break between scars could not have been natural as the forests are “fire prone” is circular logic - if they didn’t burn then perhaps they’re just not as “fire prone” as you think?
You have also ignored Richard’s study that found Snowgums scarred from every low intensity fire they were subjected to at Picadilly circus (individual trees had a hit rate of about 80%, but every ‘cool’ fire scarred some trees in each plot).
Robert, I have been forced to answer again because you have misrepresented the findings of these studies. You say “…the transition from Aboriginal to European land use resulted in the sudden occurrence of fire-damaged tree rings thought to reflect a shift from low intensity to high intensity fires”, but you don’t mention that the “thought” is yours, not the author’s. It suggests to me that I am witnessing first hand the way in which this folklore has survived -
1) rational thinking has been suspended (eg the 4 year frequency and the circular reasoning),
2) observable reality has been discarded in preference for personal dogma (eg ignoring Richard’s clear observation without providing any evidence to the contrary)
In saying this I am not attacking you, I am pointing out that you are stuck in a paradigm. This means that rather than changing your views with new evidence, you try to reinterpret the evidence to fit your existing view. You’re not the only one in that boat and I’m sure I have plenty of my own cases. If David Bowman (or anyone else) does have a study showing that only high intensity fires can scar Snowgums, please post it here as I will be very interested to read it.
44 Ross // Mar 8, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Guys and Gals,
This very interesting fire management discussion is terrific, but I think the following simple realities of fire/fuel management, certainly in NSW, have been forgotten.
Fuel management is and will continue to remain “tenure-focused”, rather than “tenure-blind creating a culture biased towards broad, easier-to-burn public lands.
Fuel management in NSW places little emphasis towards fine fuels, yet, as has been continually proven, is arguably the most lethal of fuels with most occurring on private/freehold land tenure.
Existing fire management legislation does not require any landowner to manage fuels (including broad area fuels) using fire (See NSW Rural Fire Act, 1997).
Funding for Government agency based fire management is increasingly becoming linked to size (hectares burnt) without reference to strategic value, fuel load reduction targets or residual risk.
Fuel hazard reduction (by prescribed fire) within south east region public lands accounts for more than 90% of all prescribed burning conducted within the regions Bushfire Management Committee’s risk management planning. Unfortunately, public lands comprise a small percentage of the overall area, and fuel hazard within the region.
Fuel hazard reduction (by prescribed fire), as the name implies only reduces a percentage of the overall fuel that is potentially available to a wildfire.
The percentage of available fuel reduced by prescribed burning will always be far less than the percentage available to a 7th Feb. 2009 intensity fire. In fact, the percentage difference would not cause any observable change to 7th Feb, fire behavior.
Fire authorities and/or public land managers simply cannot undertake fuel management on the scale and frequency required across our multi-tenure/use landscape that provide the fuel levels that guarantee protection to human life and property.
Regards
45 professor poongschtock // Mar 9, 2009 at 9:06 am
Excellent. Probably the most concise and focused comment so far. Brilliant comment Ross.
46 Robert // Mar 14, 2009 at 11:29 am
Phil with all due respect you are the one stuck in a paradigm. You continually claim your position is based more on fact than opinion and yet all your faith is placed on studies that the authors themselves acknowledge have major limitations but which you continually choose to ignore in pushing your dogma (as Prof does in quoting Zylstra’s work).
You claim that Banks did not acknowledge that the increased scarring was due to high intensity fires. The fact is he didn’t distinguish between low and high intensity fires but Pulsford certainly did even as you admit. So you are being deliberately deceptive.
Your example of high fire frequencies from 1860 relate to a burning pattern different to that practiced by Aborigines. The post-European settlement fires quoted were started by prospectors keen to expose the mineral earth in search for gold and copper etc (not my thoughts Phil, but based on others who wrote on this such such as Blainey, Banks and Pryor) and pastoralists burning in very warm and dry conditions to promote green pick (as you quoted from cocky farmer Franklin). But these burning practices were different to the Aborigines. But you now think Aborigines didn’t burn often in the Alps and yet to fail to explain how the snow gum structure changed from open woodland prior to European settlement to more even-aged stands of forests after the 1860s which Banks showed.
So on one hand you make a malicious statement in your first post to point out that European fire practices are different to Aboriginal burning (”With complete disdain for Aboriginal knowledge, the settlers assume that they understand the vast complexities of Aboriginal fire management because they saw someone light a fire once, but their approach to fire management is all based on the idea that anything native is inferior”). Then you argue that the fire studies in the Alps show a much lower fire frequency than post settlement, and hence Aborigines didn’t burn as often as claimed in those areas. The only conclusion from this logic is that the European burning practices were exactly the same as Aboriginal as the fire scars are supposed to represent a record of all fires. You can’t have your cake and it it as well.
Nothing can change the fact your argument is based on a form of study which has major limitations when it comes to ageing trees and their fire scars. Studying growth rings is very difficult. Difficulties arise between some of the rings as they often dispay a sharp break between early and latewood and a diffuse boundary between the late and early wood which raises the question of where new seasons spring growth begins. Therefore dendro studies roughly ESTIMATE the growth rings. Also ring widths do not always relate to seasonal conditions with respect to rainfall. For example Banks found in studying Yellow Box that more recent known drought years (eg 1982/83) can show the widest rings. This suggests errors in defining the seasonal ring (Banks’ words not mine). There is also the problem of doubtful rings and narrow indistinct rings which means that tree ageing using tree rings is far from precise.
Phil I think it is more relevant that you provide the study that shows that the fire-scarring of Snow Gums was due to low intensity fires.
47 Dave // Mar 14, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Had a really good comment from my professional firefighter collegue recently: Fuel reduction burns help you when you don’t need help; they don’t help you when you really need help!
48 Phil // Mar 16, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Robert I have to admit that I have no real idea how to answer you. I honestly can’t make any sense out of your thinking. Yes, the studies have limitations - you have done a fairly good job of summarising these in your 2nd last paragraph. It is exactly these limitations that define how much information you can take from a particular species. Banks was not a silly man, he was aware of these limitations and carefully confined his findings to those that I have stated. It was only after considering the issues that you have raised and adjusting his technique accordingly that he was able to conclude:
“Studies to date have established a general pattern showing a marked increase in fire frequencies with the arrival of European pastoralists and prospectors and recent decline with the ascendancy of the conservationist and recreationist period.”
Let’s lay that one to rest ok - John Banks believed from the study of Snowgum rings that settlers burnt the mountains more often than the Aboriginal people had. Furthermore, he makes it clear that since the “ascendancy of the conservationist and recreationist period”, the rate of scarring looks once again much closer to the Aboriginal frequency. Not my interpretation, it’s John Banks’. Either find a direct published quote from John Banks saying the opposite or leave it be.
Please quote to me where Pulsford says that the Callitris were only scarred by high intensity fire. I am only aware of him allowing for the possibility but I’m happy to be corrected. In the absence of a definite finding that Callitris cannot be scarred by low intensity fire, we are left with the fact that fire scars occurred about 4 years apart (whether from high or low-intensity fire), exactly as the Rogers described for that country. My assertion was that 4-yearly burns were more frequent than the Aboriginal pattern - either make a valid objection or leave it be.
Yes, I agree that the settlers, both miners and pastoralists burnt differently to the mountain nations - I’ve been at pains to make that point. Completely in contradiction to our fire myth, settlers did not continue the Aboriginal burning practices. They did burn on the hottest days whereas the Aboriginal people burnt under conditions that produced low intensity fires. In other timber types perhaps their burns may not have scarred the trees, but as Richards has shown, even the lowest intensity fires scar Snowgums. The current state of knowledge on Snowgums says that they are scarred by low intensity fire. Find another study that says differently or let it go.
As for how the forests changed, what more information do you need me to give you? You have the Roger’s 1st hand account of how they changed. I assume that you also have some level of fire ecology and would know that many Australian plants are germinated by fire, that fire provides a flush of nutrients that encourage quick growth in the first few years etc. Snowgums respond to fire by resprouting from a lignotuber so that a single trunk is replaced by many trunks, all springing from the year they were burnt and therefore all the same age. To make this as clear as possible: the reason some mountain areas have changed from open woodland to dense shrubby forest is, according to basic fire ecology, eyewitness account and every available piece of scientific evidence available because settlers burnt more often and at higher intensity than Aboriginal people.
My comment was not malicious, I don’t hate the settlers. The fact however that settlers did through the use of massacres, kidnappings and the spread of disease wipe out the vast majority of a race of people for whom I have great respect does make me angry. Settlers treated Aboriginal people with disdain. They did not sit at their feet and learn, they stole their daughters. Are you going to argue with this part of history as well? Yes, there were exceptions but the idea that the settlers as a whole carried on the chain of knowledge is just absurd.
In summary, the only evidence on the table so far is:
1) Snowgums scar from low intensity fire
2) Snowgum scars were infrequent before Europeans came, very frequent after they took the Aboriginal land, then infrequent after NPWS started managing the land.
3) Graziers record that they burnt at the same rate given by the Snowgum scars, and that as they did so open woodland areas turned into dense, shrubby forest.
Rather than offering even a shred of evidence to the contrary, you look at this evidence and say “The only conclusion from this logic is that the European burning practices were exactly the same as Aboriginal…”. Sorry Robert, I really don’t what to say to that.
49 Robert // Mar 18, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Upon reading Prof Poongschtok’s article I was led to believe that the “very thorough study by fire scientist Phil Zylstra” was “one of the few studies which has considered scientifically at (sic) the use of fire by Aboriginal people”. By this I thought it a peer reviewed article published in a reputable journal. Instead, upon finally getting a copy, I find it is simply an historical narrative of opinions, open ended statements conjecture and ‘hotch potch’ references to some scientific work, interviews and copying of quotes from other similar narratives or papers. The words “possibly” and “probably” are littered throughout the report signifying Phil’s opinions on the subject. The report is basically in the populist writing mould of Rolls and Flannery (nothing wrong with that by the way, as I admire and love Rolls’ writings and I am halfway through my own historical narrative on an area I manage – but I am prepared to be open about that and not claim some form of scientific high ground when debating people on my thoughts). It is instructive that the publishers of Phil’s report had to include the disclaimer “opinions expressed in this work are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the individuals that have kindly contributed or of The Australian Alps Liaison Committee”. This would not be necessary if the report was peer reviewed and based on verifiable scientific data.
But what galls me is that Phil, using his historical narrative as some form of scientific certitude attacks me with, “When you can address…that all the evidence says that Aboriginal people didn’t do it (burning in the Alps)…Until then you’re welcome to your opinion but you need to accept that all you have is personal dogma and very limited observation in the face of solid, consistent evidence. Just be careful, you want to have something more if you’re going to blame people for 210 deaths”.
You see Phil is a bureaucrat working for the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (or their equivalent these days). He is part of a cadre of employees in that organisation that have very strong philosophical views against broadscale prescribed burning which I have experienced first hand. One of their own, who is now at the University of Wollongong, has just published a paper with others, to argue a case that the regular occurrence of very large high intensity fires is actually good for the environment. It is an interesting paper as it supports its case by using the very same environmental arguments foresters have used to justify their broadscale low intensity programs for many years. Being a peer reviewed paper makes a compellingly strong case in support of the forester’s burning practices. Other papers were published by the cadre after the 2003 Alps fires with similar themes using limited data to justify their argument.
So I think Phil’s report needs a bit of a peer review since Prof Poongschtok failed to do it before providing us with his polemic against broadscale low intensity burning.
Now the thesis of Phil’s report is predicated on the assertion that there has not been any “direct observational records indicating that aboriginal burning took place in the Snowy River corridor or how often the burning was conducted.” He cites Pulsford’s PhD thesis when stating this assertion on page 23. Yet in Pulsford’s published paper on his thesis (with others) they state “as to the (pre-European) fire regime we can only speculate that it must have been benign, removing litter, stimulating plant growth but inflicting upon the tree strata” when they describe the structure of the pre-European Snowy River valley woodland. Therefore contrary to Phil’s claim, there is recognition by Pulsford et al that low intensity burning must have occurred in order to maintain stands “dominated by old rather than young trees” where the understorey was “composed of predominantly dense grasses and forbs with scattered shrubs”. It defies current ecological knowledge to suggest that such open woodlands with “scattered shrubs” could be maintained without fire, unless of course there were herbivorous mega-fauna roaming the valleys or other forms of ‘lawmowers’ particularly during the climatically benign Holocene.
It is also bizarre that Phil describes a eucalypt community as a climax community on page 24 when trying to dispute the claim “that decreasing fire frequency caused the regrowth is unlikely to be the case”. Eucalypts are a classic disclimax community as they do not reach a stabilising community that can regenerate and persist without disturbance. Even the oldest eucalypt forests called ‘mixed forests’ eventually become the true climax rainforest communities once the eucalypts die and the rainforest emergents take over.
Phil also claims that “low intensity fire would effectively expose the soil and make it vulnerable to erosion.” He cites a paper from Alec Costin 60 years ago. Perhaps Phil would be better to cite more recent and relevant studies. For example a recent report by Patrick Lane and his associates, published in February 2009, looked at two long term catchments burnt by the 2003 alpine fires. They found that only the near stream area delivers sediment to the stream after a major wildfire. The remainder of the catchment is ‘disconnected’ during most storm events due to the highly macroporous soils combined with their strong water repellence. I am not sure how under low intensity fires, where the humus is protected by the ashes of the litter burnt, the soil can reach the waterways, if under the 2003 high intensity fires they didn’t.
On page 25 Phil attacks the integrity of Howitt as an astute observer of the environment. He claims he was not present in Australia to observe the forests in their original state and yet in Howitt’s 1890 paper he discusses in detail the description of the landscape in the early 1860s which was very early in the European settlement of that area and he saw a very close representation to the original forests. In fact his paper laments the significant changes 30 years on.
The interpretation of Lotsky’s quote on page 22 is bizarre and certainly unsubstantiated. Trying to interpret someone’s description of ‘large timber’ as representing a forest instead of woodland is noble but not convincing.
No references are given to support the statement on page 24 “An increase in low intensity fires would therefore be magnified in its effects on the landscape”. This is pure speculation.
On page 25 Phil again offers us his considered opinion when he claims that since Snowgums are sensitive to fire scarring because of their thin bark then the fire-free intervals as high as 91 years, prior to Europeans “almost certainly represent nearly all fire events”. He goes on to state on the next page that “this evidence strongly refutes the claims that burning frequency has decreased from Aboriginal times”. Yet he doesn’t acknowledge in the report the limitations that dendrochronological work has in identifying low intensity fire events. Although it has not been properly studied, Phil claims “that dendrochronological work done by Banks, Pryor & others on Snowgums is rock solid - frequent broadscale burning was not part of Aboriginal fire management in the Snowies”. I put it that, even though snowgum may have thinner bark, the scarring would only occur when there is an accumulation of decorticating bark at the base of the tree to allow scarring under a low intensity fire. If there is a study to show otherwise, why was this not referred to in the report?
Not satisfied to restrict the report to his own opinions, Phil takes the liberty of sharing Costin’s opinion from 1954 on page 28, that “many species” have declined “as a result of increased fire frequency”.
Phil then summarises by saying his case is “very convincing”. If he means that he presents a well articulated argument based on his opinions and interpretations of other work, then yes he may well be right but in terms of a scientific case, he falls well short of the mark. In its present form Phil’s report can not be regarded as objective or authoritative. It argues a certain point of view, and the evidence presented appears to be selected to support that point of view. In its present form, therefore, the report contributes little to scientific knowledge. One has the impression that the overall message the report is intended to give has been decided in advance. In fact I think his report represents the “personal dogma” of the bureaucratic cadre in environmental management in NSW who show a strong defensive mind-set after each large conflagration rips through their managed areas.
50 Phil // Mar 18, 2009 at 6:21 pm
The Alps Fire History was not peer reviewed, it’s authority comes only from the work it references. I suggest that readers google “Fire History of the Australian Alps” and read it rather than accepting the various out of context quotes and spin you might have read above. It’s not actually difficult to find for anyone who wants to know what they’re talking about.
I have done my best to simplify everything for you Robert so that my case can be falsified. To change my mind all you need to do is come up with a study that refutes Richard’s work and shows Snowgums cannot get scarred by low intensity or frequent fires. You clearly don’t have any such evidence.
My opinions don’t come from my employer and I’m not part of a secret greenie plot. I am nothing more than a fire practitioner who wants to do the job properly but would prefer to make his decisions based on evidence - whatever that evidence says is right. You can twist my words, call me a bureaucrat and throw in all the red herrings you like, but reality isn’t decided by who can beat their chest the hardest. I look forward to the day when fire management isn’t either.
51 Greg // Apr 8, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Hi Robert
Are you still working as the Resource Manager for Gunns woodchipping operation in Tasmania?
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