Fires Take a Toll on Australian Forests

[multiweb]

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145998/fires-take-a-toll-on-australian-forests?src=eoa-iotd

[Saturnine]

I guess most of us are still stunned by the size and ferocity of the fires this season and it's not really bushfire season yet. The toll being taken on people and property is bad enough and add in the devastation to our bushland and national parks and the carnage to our native wildlife already means a long recovery time and maybe no recovery for some of our flora and fauna at all.
Does not make for joyous holiday period when so much destruction is happening over such a large area of the east coast and Vic and WA are also being impacted.

[drylander]

NSW Parks was warned every year for over 10 years that they needed to reduce fuel loads in the bush but didn't do anything and the green groups were totally against it.
The terrible thing is the amount of fires lit by human arsonists and I hope it wasn't climate warriors trying to promote their agenda as well.
A poor consolation but it will take a while for the understory to get back to such large loads that massive fires will be on hold for a couple years. I hope the bodies involved get there act together and maintain the parks better or reduce the amount locked up to avoid this in the future.
Pete

[Outcast]

What a complete load of horsesh_t!! Perhaps you should try listening to what the RFS leadership & the firefighters on the ground are actually saying... you never know, you might learn something....

[PS19.1]

No I don't think we need to listen to those in the leadership you suggest but we should perhaps listen to the true masters of land management for thousands of years the aboriginal people.i have heard them speak on this subject but doesn't seem to gain traction in the media.i guess it doesn't fit the narrative being driven here.and yes many national park fuel loads are increasing to the point where the fires are so hot that extensive vegetation damage is done.ive seen large trees fallen across walking trails have small bridges built over them instead of removing them for example,beautiful old gumtrees with enormous fuel loads at their base with no hope of survival with the next lightning strike!

[sharpiel]

You can't expect us to take you seriously when your gibberish isn't even grammatical.

[sharpiel]

The true masters of land management... If I'm not mistaken anytime they wanted a roast meat dinner of mega fauna (which research now indicates they drove to extinction) they set fire to vast tracts of bushland to corner terrified prey at the expense of everything else living in the path of the fire...

Now if I did that I don't think I'd be lauded as a true master of land management. More an arsonist.

[sharpiel]

Why would "climate warriors" destroy the very thing they're trying to protect? Your proposition lacks sense and coherence.

[Outcast]

Lets talk about these things then shall we?

1. Lets talk about the budget slashing of Parks & Wildlife across pretty much every state & territory in the country, I'm not blaming any particular flavour in politics, they've all done it.

2. Lets talk about how due to those budget cuts, instead of vast tracks of bushland that in the past were managed by a large department with sufficient numbers of rangers to monitor where hazard reductions (inexcess of hundreds of thousands or hectares in each area) now rely on one person to manage it all in that one area. Think I'm joking; I'll produce the evidence if you like but, I suspect you're not interested.

3. Let's talk about how, in a country that is in the middle of severe drought, the windows for doing hazard reduction burns is getting shorter & shorter.

4. Let's talk about how the average punter whinges about the inconvenient smoke generated through backburning during those limited windows of opportunity has led to countless councils holding back on what burns they do. Not the greenies, the average member of a community; don't believe me, then go & watch several interviews with the mayors of communities wiped out by bushfires this past month & listen to what they are saying about the lack of back burning. They aren't blaming the greenies that's for sure.

5. Let's talk about fire season after fire season leading up to this catastrophic event where successive governments (again, pick your flavour, it's largely irrelevant) still don't properly resource numerous departments to actively manage the fire hazard or at the very least, put the resources in place to allow the RFS to have half a chance of mounting a halfway effectively combatting such an event.

6. Let's talk about a country in prolonged drought & what that means to just how dry & ready to burn it is.. but, still we do nothing to resource the very agencies that might, just might mitigate the hazards or at the least stand a fighting chance to control it when it goes pear shaped.

7. Sure, I agree actually, let's talk about aboriginal land management, it was extremely effective we believe (hey, even the science acknowledges that).. now before leaping into a conversation about how we should just do what they did; we actually need to examine the difference in cliimate (wow, shouldn't go there eh.. no such thing right??), difference in population, difference in the way that communities were structured, the fact that we live in cities, fixed towns with permanent structures & there's more if you like; before we just start implementing strategies that worked fine for thousands of years, until we got here & changed the landscape in the manner we have.

8. Let's talk about the tremendous amount we could learn from history but, generally choose not to because, you know, we are all smarter than the last generation, yet here we are... still fighting wars, still f....g over the vulnerable, still whingeing about contributing taxes to the betterment of the entire country, still complaining that someone's getting something I'm not & I'm pretty sure I could go on for hours with more examples if I felt like it but, yeah, sure we are so much smarter!!

Nope.. far better to talk about the Greenies & point those fingers at blame at the lefty loony tree huggers... You'd think, that folk into Astronomy would be somewhat into science, you would, wouldn't you?? However, it seems that in today's society, somehow opinion clearly trumps scientific evidence, statistical data & quite frankly, that which is in front of your own eyes should you care to actually look but, is somehow inconvenient.

But, yeah... its the f....g greenies, they're the problem.. sure...

[Outcast]

Les,

There is in fact still some considerable scientific argument regarding the extinction of mega fauna & I also think there is, in fact sufficient scientific evidence that looking more closely at land management of the indigenous peoples bears greater scrutiny to see how at least the concepts could be utilised in our modern context.

However, I do understand your point, particularly given where the conversation in this thread has gone...

Cheers

[Outcast]

Actually, it does gain traction in the scientific community, Parks & Wildlife as well as the RFS. In fact, some practices are actively being pushed. However, you also need to examine those practices in a historical context when this country of ours was somewhat less populated, settled in a different manner & we weren't engaged in the wholesale harvesting of forests & land clearing activities.

You might also like to look more closely at exactly who is standing in the way of implementing some of those practices. I'll give you a hint, you already mentioned one (media) but, government (pick your flavour, it's largely irrelevant), national party, agricultural industry & other vested interests would be good places to look too; that doesn't gain much traction either does it?

[Outcast]

Final Post... because, otherwise I'll say something that get's me a holiday.. or worse...

Marc,

Awesome post; the one thing ignored by most because of the catastrophic immediacy of the current events is the long term effect of these fires..

Your post made me actually sit & contemplate those longer term effects which potentially serve to excerbate the situation into the future..

Sorry that I hijacked it a bit but, I cannot stand wilful ignorance..

Cheers mate...

[andyc]

Nice posts Carlton. Yeah, it beggars belief that on a science site we see people parroting the "it's the greenies" myth. Or the "it's arson" distraction (lightning started Gospers Mountain on 26th Oct, and late Nov dry lightning started Green Wattle Creek and Ruined Castle among about 100 other fires) - arson is a problem, but not the critical difference thus year. Never mind that the greens have not held any significant power, the truth is that this is the hottest and driest season on record (see December reports from the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC (https://www.bnhcrc.com.au/hazardnotes/68), Bureau of Meteorology (http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/statements/scs72.pdf)). Record high temperatures, low precipitation, low soil moisture, high fire danger. We broke the continent-averaged temperature record by 1.6C - from a climate statistics point of view, for such a wide area, that is by an extraordinary amount, the sort of record that should maybe fall by a fraction of a degree. This is all of course as forecast by climate scientists, who have identified the heating and drying trend in SE Aus, increased fire weather, increased extremes, in line with the physics (e.g. State of the Climate 2018). This is what +1C global temperature looks like. Fancy exploring what +2C will be like, or +4C?

The chart shows NSW temp/precipitation and where 2019 relates to previous years. I'm sure all the extra fuel thanks to the not-in-power greenies helped push 2019's temperature, precipitation to records levels /sarc

[From the CRC December outlook:] "The tendency for fire seasons to become more intense and fire danger to occur earlier in the season is a clear trend in Australia’s climate, reflecting reduced and/or less reliable cool season rainfall and rising temperatures (see State of the Climate 2018). Fire season severity is increasing across much of Australia as measured by annual (July to June) indices
of the FFDI, with the increases tending to be greatest in inland eastern Australia and coastal Western Australia."

[Retrograde]

Well said Carlton.
Andy, your scientific perspective is always appreciated.

[lazjen]

Another point that a lot of people do not think about when it comes to hazard reduction burns. Not only are there the limited time for it per year because of the extended fire season and drought conditions, but there's some areas that can't or never should be burnt - because they contain life that maybe rare or endangered. And because we've cutback on spending on science, we're finding it difficult to determine just "what we've got now".

We need to potentially come up with other plans to deal with the situation that's not necessarily burn everything. Properly funded weed management and eradication would be a big step forward for this. Better management of our land and development would be another.

[Outcast]

At last, some meaningful discussion...:lol:

Chris, you are as I understand it correct, not everywhere should be burnt. Not only due to reductions in biodiversity but, also because some bushland does not benefit from it, does not require it for regeneration & in many cases are lost forever because of it.

This is something our indigenous people actually understood, they did not wholesale burn everything because they understood what the land needed.

Thanks Andy, I really appreciate it when someone with the scientific background I lack chimes in with facts & data to support what so many simply fail or refuse to see.

To address the elephant in the room; Climate Change & the anthropomorphic acceleration of natural cycles by increased CO2 levels.

The problem as I see it is often the language used to describe the problem; it's a complex issue, it's not just the changing of CO2 levels leading to temperature shifts & increased extreme weather events; it's (as I learned quite recently) the increased uptake of CO2 by our oceans leading to acidification of a significant part of our biodiversity equation; it's poor land management practices, it's the destruction of the fine balance in our atmosphere, our oceans, our environment & our ecology that enables life as we know today to continue to exist.

People dumb it down (including activists) to the simple term of 'saving the planet'; The planet's fine in general terms. As naysayers are apt to point out, the planet has gone through plenty of changes in climate over it's existence. Trouble is, it's also gone through a significant number of mass extinction events both through climate variation extremes as well as catastrophic collisions with interstellar visitors.

As I read it, what is happening now is the potential for another not necessarily man made but, certainly man assisted mass extinction event which will likely remove us & who knows how many other species along with it...

I fail to understand how a species that has the ability to at least try to stave off it's own demise, wilfully refuses to participate in it's own continuance...

Perhaps our time has come... perhaps we no longer 'deserve' to continue, I don't know sadly, we'll take a lot with us if we don't do something.

The planet... well it will continue as it has for the past 4.5 billion years, it will morph, it will change & who knows, perhaps after the next mass extinction event new life will emerge...

[multiweb]

It's sure is terrible what's happening this year to a lot of people and at the worst time of the year. Tempers flare as much as the fires and there are a lot of desperate and angry people heading into 2020 needing to point a finger. Chill out, enjoy the Christmas break and rack in some sky time if you have the opportunity. Stay safe :thumbsup:

[casstony]

For the most part we're just another dumb animal species driven by emotion rather than rational thought. Since we're so easily manipulated it only takes a few selfish people to rise to leadership positions to screw everything up.

We need the Vulcans to rescue us.

[Imme]

I may be shot down for saying this....no disrespect to those who are going through a very hard time with the fires at the moment however......

I live in a place that backs on to state forest managed by the Vic government.
The forest is a tinder box waiting to go up. When it does there is a good chance my house will as well if the conditions are right. It doesn't matter what I do to try and mitigate that....if the wind blows the right way it's just a fact it'll occur at some point either while I live there or in the future.

This is a choice I make.....I dont blame greenies, government or anyone else. I chose to live in nature and fully expect nature will bite me on the 4rse one day.

If I want to protect myself from fire I should move to the inner city.

People need to stop pointing fingers.....it's nature. Fires occurred naturally well before we were on this earth and they will continue to occur once our species has died out.

[Outcast]

Could not agree more...

[Outcast]

Jon,

I for one won't shoot you down as I don't totally disagree with your sentiment.

Life is full of risks & pretty much none can be mitigated to the nth degree to make it all perfectly safe...

I also don't disagree with your comment regarding nature & fires but, I do believe we can in fact do more to mitigate the risks to both those people who choose to live in the bush & those species whose natural habitat it is.

We cannot, as you say prevent a bushfire from ever happening but, there are things that can be done to reduce the risk & severity. In that regard, I believe fingers do need to be pointed at those in a position to do something to reduce the risks, who for whatever reason, choose to do nothing.

Should you choose the option of moving to a city to try to completely protect yourself from the risk of fire, sadly, you'll just exchange one risk factor for a multitude of others so, me, I'd probably stay in the bush.

To use just one example, we introduced seatbelts, drink driving laws, speed limits & improved other the safety features in cars to reduce the risks involved in driving & having accidents. We've successfully done it in many other areas of our lives including mitigating the risks that nature throws at us.

Don't you think that where possible, we should be looking at other risk reduction strategies to protect ourselves to some degree in other areas?

Cheers

[Wavytone]

But this is precisely the point I made ages ago.

Fighting fires is a mitigating strategy - the event has occurred. The challenge is to stop dreaming of what the countries might once have been, and instead decide what we want it to be in future.

In England, China and Japan this occurred over thousands of years, but now every rock, every tree you see is there either because someone liked, it or put it there. If they dint, it was removed. And yes the native fauna is all but gone. All of it.

So frankly the time is now to stop dreaming of gum tree forests, koalas and kangaroos, and think about what is both safe, and sustainable, in future.

Conversely if 5% was to be burnt systematically every winter I'll suggest a lot of other groups will have problems with that - starting with locals affected by air pollution, tourism and a lot other aspects. that why it never happened .Essentially the areas in the major National Parks - and the Sydney water catchment - have not had a major fire in 70 years. The "hazard reduction" efforts in these areas have frankly been pathetically inadequate.

If you want to burn areas on average every 20 years that means 5% of the parks and state forest areas have to be burnt EVERY YEAR. To be frank, the efforts in the past decade have been woefully less - "nibbling around the edges" would be a better description.

From a safety management perspective, if you want to apply a stronger approach, there are ways, though unpalatable to many. The first is elimination of the hazard - the strongest form of prevention. That means either

a) get rid of the gum trees, all of them; the fires have effectively done this; and
b) do not allow residential housing within 1km of a forested area.

To those who want to live among the gum trees, all I can suggest is have a bloody good insurance policy, and a fire plan, and be prepared to follow it.

[Outcast]

Nick,

To some extent, I share your sentiment... we cannot turn back the clock, many of the strategies that might mitigate the risk further are either not practical or simply too extreme to be acceptable to many.

I'm with you, the future is what we need to be looking at carefully & deciding what we can & can't do to enable a relatively safe & sustainable future.

We may disagree on what that strategy is & that is okay; FWIW, I completely understand the hierarchy of risk control & have a considerable experience in risk management. I'm not convinced that elimination of the risk is in fact possible but, there are other controls that could be considered & there are potentially broader strategies that might reduce the likelihood of conditions getting to the point we are at.

I'm not sure I totally share your sentiment that fighting fires is a risk mitigation strategy but, only in the context I am thinking. However, yes, to some degree, it is entirely a risk mitigation strategy after all else has failed. Similar to your sentiments on hazard reduction, our efforts to properly equip those who fight fires to enable that form of risk mitigation to be even remotely effective has also been woefully inadequate.

Cheers

[Astronovice]

Great posts Carlton.

With Eucalyptus Regnans as in the Victorian and Tasmanian mighty Mountain Ash forests that remain, the choices are stark. Either burn off and reduce fuel load such that if fires do occur they are so called “cold fires”, or fail to do so and if the resulting fire is extreme the consequence of which is total loss of the mountain ash as they do not regenerate other than by human replanting. As evidence of this you only have to visit the areas of the Strezlecki Ranges in Gippsland that we’re burned on “Black Saturday” to see the total destruction of the mountain ash that used to dominate the mountain slopes.

Sadly I think we have now reached a point that unless we all make enough noise to make those in power listen and resource appropriately and plan to mitigate risks as far as is possible to do so, then nature will continue to do the burning for us with all the trauma that brings.

[dikman]

I recall seeing somewhere that when the aboriginals came to this country 60 - 70,000 (?) years ago the country was quite different, a lot greener and wetter overall. Their penchant for lighting fires is what changed the country, plants that couldn't tolerate too much burning died out, leaving those which actually rely on burning left. Look at what we've got here, most of the native flora re-shoots pretty quickly after a fire, in fact some of it needs fire (and smoke) to regenerate.


As for the aboriginals being "masters of controlled burning"....:rofl:. Are you saying that before lighting a fire they looked at their topographical maps (pretty good for a race that never had a written language), consulted their meteorological experts so that they would know which way it will burn, figured out where they would need to be to stop it spreading and moved their firefighting equipment into place, just in case?


Or, (and yes, this is probably a politically incorrect idea these days) being your basic stone-age hunter-gatherer people who kept moving in order to survive they simply decided we need to kill a beastie for food, lets light a fire to chase something out, easier than having to hunt something. All they had to do was make sure they walked away from the fire.



Which idea makes the most sense......

[Outcast]

Actually, it's a little more complex than that & you can freely read up on just how they managed areas should you choose to...

[Outcast]

Trust me Marc,

I'm trying, really really trying...

[RyanJones]

Hallelujah!

Merry Christmas everyone.

[Retrograde]

A short but interesting read on the nuances and difficulties of hazard reduction from a former NPWS head.

"In the cool of the evening, ahead of forecast bad weather, there was too much moisture and too little fuel to get an effective burn, even though we all knew the vegetation would burn furiously, threatening nearby houses, 24-48 hours later when the weather turned."

https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6522654/hazard-reduction-debate-simply-frustrating/?cs=14246

[multiweb]

Thanks for the link Pete. Straight from the horse's mouth. :thumbsup: