UNAVOIDABLE IMPACTS OF UNCONTROLLED FIRES

While the title, UNAVOIDABLE IMPACTS, is a true reflection of what happens when an uncontrolled fire needs to be extinguished, most out-of-control bushfires are completely avoidable!

 It’s difficult to understand the mindset of those landowners that continually set fire to their properties, a practice otherwise known as ‘burning off’, with no means or intention of containing it.

This scenario is particularly prevalent where the land in question adjoins state forest, national parks or other public land, and this year has seen huge expanses of parks and reserves in the Clarence Valley burned out by neighbouring landowners. Everlasting Swamp, Nymboida, Chaelundi, and Ramornie National Parks, Sherwood, Banyabba, and Chambigne Nature Reserves, have all suffered, along with the entire Shannon Creek dam catchment, which has serious implications for the quality of the Coffs-Clarence regional water supply.

Out of control fires result in enormous financial losses for neighbouring landowners, and all too often result in the loss of homes, livestock, and even human lives.

The laws governing the seemingly ritual burning off of bushland are strict. All neighbours must be notified before burning takes place, and the fire must be contained within the property. However, the alerting of neighbours rarely takes place, and statistics suggest that many landowners light fires, knowing they can’t control them.

Out-of-control bushfires have cost millions of dollars-worth of property damage in the Clarence valley this year, and the cost to taxpayers of fighting those fires is even greater, and then there’s the clean-up. Removing fallen and potentially dangerous trees from highways and replacing power poles and wooden bridges. Water supplies are polluted and in extreme cases fish-kills can result, and the list goes on.

The environmental cost of too frequent burning is well documented, leading to ecosystem and species decline and even extinction. Despite all of this, authorities continue to condone these practices and turn a blind eye to breaches.

Earlier this year, an out-of-control fire at Dilkoon saw a Section 44 emergency declared, yet two days earlier, landowners had been free to burn-off without a permit.

Bushfire threat must be taken seriously.

 

-        John Edwards

 Published in the "Voices for the Earth" column in The Clarence Valley Independent , November 22, 2023

 

A FIERY FUTURE - PART 2

In "A Fiery Future - Part 1"  conservationist Dailan Pugh described the impact of the current bushfires on rainforest, with particular reference to Terania Creek. Below is a continuation of that post which was  published in the CVCC blog on December 4.

As exemplified by Koalas, numerous species have been hit hard. The fires have burnt out 23% of the high quality Koala habitat identified in north-east NSW, including a third of that on public lands. Only small refugia have survived within the burnt areas, and the Koalas are under immense stress in these.

Though the situation is more dire than indicated as much of the highest quality habitat has been degraded by intensive logging, and most of the remaining core populations have now been hit hard by the fires.

The Busby's Flat and Myall Creek fires have burnt out most of the regionally significant Koala populations of the Richmond Lowlands, the Bees Nest and Liberation Trail fires burnt out the most of the nationally significant Koala populations on the Dorrigo plateau, and the Crestwood Drive fire burnt out the major refuge left south of Port Macquarie.

While the rednecks are quick to blame national parks for fires, parks only represent 36% of the burnt area, with private lands 44%, and most of the ignition is likely from humans. Given that logging dries forests, creates fuel and increases the likelihood of canopy fires it is the bigger threat.

There is a belief that we need to burn forests more frequently to reduce fire threat, though it only takes 2-4 years for leaf litter to build up, and in extreme events prescribed burning does little to stop the spread of fire. It is telling that 151,000 ha of the area burnt this year has been burnt in either wildfires or prescribed burns in the past 3 years, with 73,000 ha burnt in the previous 12 months.

As well as affecting rainforest and old growth trees, too frequent burning adversely affects many seed producing shrubs, along with refuges and resources for a variety of fauna.

The protection and expansion of forests are essential to take up and store the carbon we emit if we are to have any chance of limiting the worst of climate heating. As we continue to slash and burn our forests we are increasing their flammability and turning a vital carbon sink into another source of emissions.

We need to undertake a rigorous review of how we manage forests, manipulate fire and protect property if we are to adapt to this brave new world we are creating. Business as usual is an unfolding catastrophe.

   -  Dailan Pugh 
       November 2019.

PROBLEMS WITH CURRENT FIRE PRACTICES

Fire is regularly used as a purported means of protecting life and property against uncontrolled wildfire. But does it work?

Haslem et al (2011) warned that we cannot manage fires beneficially without first knowing how litter behaves over long periods after fire. Now, with data gathered in time-since-fire measurements of litter tonnage per hectare (t/ha), interviews with long-term residents, historical family property records and collected materials from other earlier studies, research finally proves that burning vegetation along prescribed 30 year interval guidelines (Department of Environment and Conservation 2005/DECC 2008) based solely on an expected response to fire by plants, is less successful in protecting life and property than leaving it alone (Croft; Hunter, Reid University of New England / Office of Environment and Heritage 2016)

Observant landowners already know that fire brings only a denser layer of dropped leaves, dead sticks, fallen trees and elimination of soil moisture, fungus and organic mulch, all set for a hotter fire the next year.

In line with these views, it is now known that litter loads ('fuel' in human terms) in forests unburned for greater than 100 years pose less threat than occasionally burned areas. Also, on frequently burned sites, leaf and bark build-up is significantly greater (about 10 t/ha) than where fire is removed from the landscape.

Depending on soil and moisture, litter after fire builds up over 20–30 years to around 4–8 t/ha. It then stabilises for a further 10 or so years, then declines with an increase in humidity, fungus and soil creation. In forests unburned for greater than 100 years, litter mass remains generally constant at less than 2 t/ha. Similarly shrub cover increases rapidly in the first 10 years after fire, continues a more gradual increase up to 15–20 years, then declines, eventually reverting to its original balance beyond 100 years.

As ground litter does not, after all, continue to build up ad infinitum, as believed, the prescribed 30 year cycle fire regime is not only ineffective (Whelan 2002; Fernandes and Botelho 2003), but actually detrimental to long-term protection.

Land managers who leave forested areas alone are ensuring a much safer environment for themselves, their neighbours, and their following generations.

- Patricia Edwards

This article was originally published in the VOICES FOR THE EARTH column in The Daily Examiner on October 10, 2016