Bushfire season 2019-2020

[highercountry]

...the effects of prescribed burning can so easily be seen that a child can see and understand why they help control wildfire

Once again the same old simplistic comments from a person who earlier claimed to be a scientist. Hint, real scientists don't make comments like this.
Hughmac, the member you responded to is a botanist. You know, a real scientist. He posted a fair and reasoned opinion based no doubt on his training, observation, experience and evidence.

BTW. I was employed as a professional (bush) fire-fighter and worked on the Vic Alps fires in 2003, 2006-07 and 09. The then DNRE/DSE also sent us out to numerous fires in both NSW and Vic in a wide variety of landscapes and floristic communities..
I saw zero evidence of earlier controlled burns "helping control" a running fire. I did see bush burning in 2007 that had previously burnt in 2003. With the wind behind it, in steep terrain it burnt with all the ferocity of '03.

In this era of extensive, long-term drought and massively powerful, fast moving, very large scale fires the old regime of fire preparation and readiness is outdated, ineffective and obsolete.
You are spouting a populist, unsupported opinion.

[ghosta]

A couple of post already illustrate the problem fire management authorities have..even my 8yo grandaughter understands that less fuel means a less intense fire. Its not that she is smarter than a so called botanist who is commenting on an area way outside their experience, it just she has seen actual hazard reduced fuels next to patches that havent and understands what she sees. Its also possible she is a lot smarter than i give her credit for and can see the obvious where those with closed minds cannot.

[potato]

A couple of post already illustrate the problem fire management authorities have..even my 8yo grandaughter understands that less fuel means a less intense fire. Its not that she is smarter than a so called botanist who is commenting on an area way outside their experience, it just she has seen actual hazard reduced fuels next to patches that havent and understands what she sees. Its also possible she is a lot smarter than i give her credit for and can see the obvious where those with closed minds cannot.

This is why the tabloids love the idea but unfortunately fires are much more complex than fuel alone.

I 100% agree with the botanist. There is a lot of science to back this up and its good to see the country is finally discussing the usefulness/appropriateness of hazard reduction burns in the eastern states.

[peregrinator]

I heard the tail-end of an ABC radio news report last week that amazed me. Don't know whether it referred to Qld or NSW, but an observer reported being at a location that had been burnt just a few days previously. He saw a new fire starting up in the same place, which he described as having no fuel and being nothing but carbon. He sounded as though he could hardly believe what he was seeing.

Did anyone here happen to hear that report and be able to provide any detail?

[Hughmac]

I heard the tail-end of an ABC radio news report last week that amazed me. Don't know whether it referred to Qld or NSW, but an observer reported being at a location that had been burnt just a few days previously. He saw a new fire starting up in the same place, which he described as having no fuel and being nothing but carbon. He sounded as though he could hardly believe what he was seeing.

Did anyone here happen to hear that report and be able to provide any detail?

Didn't hear the report, but it comes as no surprise. As intense as these fires are, they still typically leave scorched but unburnt organic matter in their wake. This readily becomes fuel for the next fire, even if only days apart.

[ghosta]

Those who still believe science has a role to play in bushfire management will find this article explains things in a way most people can understand.

https://blog.csiro.au/bushfire-basics/

This will be new information for prescribed burning critics..the basics of fire that is apparently a total mystery to them.

[north-north-west]

Do you know what confirmation bias is?

[crollsurf]

No one is saying prescribed burns don't work but only in some areas, not in others. In some areas, it makes the situation worse as Hughmac has already pointed out.

Horses for courses but at the end of the day, what you need to do on your own property is well documented. If your too lazy to get your property right, probably time to move.

Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk

[potato]

Horses for courses but at the end of the day, what you need to do on your own property is well documented. If your too lazy to get your property right, probably time to move.

Yep and stop blaming your neighbour for not burning their patch.

Dave Bowman has written a nice little article about indigenous fire management: https://theconversation.com/our-land-is ... ers-100331

While I'm a big fan of mosaic burns in the right ecological setting, I still stand by my point though that in this new fire regime these kind of burns will have little if any impact on large landscape fires.

If you have the time, Bowman wrote an excellent article which has been regarded as context setting for those in the field. The abstract can be found here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2588473?se ... b_contents

[ghosta]

Im pleased its not my job to convince climate change and prescribed burning sceptics that action needs to be taken with some urgency...this thread seems to indicate that the publics undertanding of fire generally is pretty limited.

Prescribed burning is easily talked about, not all that difficult to actually do, but is hidiously difficult for timid and inexperienced management authorities to carry out. Where there are strong local influences to get the job done there will be less damage done by bushfires, but in general i would expect to see more destruction. While climate change has a role, the far less agressive approach towards supression that has had to be adopted enables fires to get larger and do more damage.

[north-north-west]

Prescribed burning is ... not all that difficult to actually do...

To actually do it with minimal possibility of the fire escaping and minimal negative impact is less easy than you think, even more so with climate change. How many scientists who have relevant knowledge have you actually talked to/read?

[dalehikes]

Regarding a child: "even my 8yo grandaughter understands" "she has seen" "understands what she sees" "possible she is a lot smarter".
Regarding a scientist: "so called botanist" "way outside their experience""closed minds"

I love your ready willingness to ridicule a scientist and talk up your grandchilds single experience.

Can she explain how a Wet Sclerophyll forest that was backburnt 12 months ago accelerated the progress of a fire and allowed it to burn into rainforest?

The backburn dried out and burnt the luxuriant understorey of soft-leaved plants and ferns which usually act as suppressant, turning them into a fuel that allowed easy progress of the fire.

In this situation, the backburn actually helped the fire spread as it didnt get the expected rain, growth and rotting typically expected in the area.

[Warin]

For those interested

Looking at 'fires near me' .. there is an unburnt area around the middle of the wollemi fire..

https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/fire-informa ... es-near-me

[crollsurf]

For those interested

Looking at 'fires near me' .. there is an unburnt area around the middle of the wollemi fire..

https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/fire-informa ... es-near-me

Not anymore, that patch has disappeared. Certainly interesting though.

[Warin]

For those interested

Looking at 'fires near me' .. there is an unburnt area around the middle of the wollemi fire..

https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/fire-informa ... es-near-me

Not anymore, that patch has disappeared. Certainly interesting though.

That is a pity. It also divided the fire in to 3 areas - west, east and a strip down the middle. Possibly the central bit was being fought by the NPWS... note the was.

[mandragara]

I've started to use this map over the Fires Near Me map: https://fires.globalforestwatch.org/

It's updated twice a day and provides 375x375 meter resolution as to where fires are burning. Also has historic data.

[Warin]

Thanks mandargara, that is nice.

[Hughmac]

Those who still believe science has a role to play in bushfire management will find this article explains things in a way most people can understand.

https://blog.csiro.au/bushfire-basics/

This will be new information for prescribed burning critics..the basics of fire that is apparently a total mystery to them.

Good basic explanation of bushfires - even predicts the impacts of climate change (although their prediction that Spring would be largely unaffected would appear to be somewhat erroneous). I wonder if you read the response below the article describing exactly the changes I described as a result of prescribed burning in northern Australia? Prescribed burning has its place, however unless its done selectively and appropriately it can actually do more harm than good. It is not the panacea that some of our less informed commentators and politicians would have you believe.

[slparker]

A recent article on the academic website The Conversation discussing whether, and under which conditions, hazard reduction burning is effective:

https://theconversation.com/a-surprisin ... ire-127022

The take-away message, my italics:


'Evidence from a range of studies demonstrates fuel loads can significantly modify fire behaviour under benign weather conditions. But reduced fuel loads do little for bushfire mitigation under extreme fire weather and in times of drought.'

[Moondog55]

[quote="slparker"

'Evidence from a range of studies demonstrates fuel loads can significantly modify fire behaviour under benign weather conditions. But reduced fuel loads do little for bushfire mitigation under extreme fire weather and in times of drought.'[/quote]

OK
Then lets make Australia a more benign place to live.
Millions of tiny dams to keep water in the ground, allow all the old wetlands to refill with water and stop robbing them to grow crops ofsssssssssssssssss nil economic value to Australasia as a whole, use all those mothballed sea water desalination plants to pipe water to the inland, ditto with all the sewage and get all that processing done inland and lets flood Lake Eyre with water from Spencer Gulf and turn it back into an inland sea

[potato]

When it rains again perhaps.

https://www.betootaadvocate.com/uncateg ... bushfires/

I do tend to remember a former ACT Chief Minister floating this idea after the 2003 Canberra bushfires.

[wildwanderer]

Often feel that beetoot provides the most accurate reporting of any Australian newspaper..

[north-north-west]

'Evidence from a range of studies demonstrates fuel loads can significantly modify fire behaviour under benign weather conditions. But reduced fuel loads do little for bushfire mitigation under extreme fire weather and in times of drought.'

OK
Then lets make Australia a more benign place to live.
Millions of tiny dams to keep water in the ground, allow all the old wetlands to refill with water and stop robbing them to grow crops ofsssssssssssssssss nil economic value to Australasia as a whole, use all those mothballed sea water desalination plants to pipe water to the inland, ditto with all the sewage and get all that processing done inland and lets flood Lake Eyre with water from Spencer Gulf and turn it back into an inland sea

Why is the supposed solution always to try to keep modifying the environment? Haven't we learnt by now that we don't understand the complexities of it well enough to do that without negative impacts? How about adapting our society to the environment instead?

Yes, rehabilitate wetlands and native forests and grasslands etc as much as possible, shift to regenerative agricultural practices to improve soil health, water retention and biodiversity, but the big, grandiose irrigation schemes always cause more problems than they solve.

[potato]

Why is the supposed solution always to try to keep modifying the environment? Haven't we learnt by now that we don't understand the complexities of it well enough to do that without negative impacts? How about adapting our society to the environment instead?

Thanks for raising this NNW... prescribed burning is exactly this, it's another layer of human intervention often in areas that we are trying to do the exact opposite.

When the advocates of prescribed burning call the vegetation and litter "fuel" then you know they are really only focused on the fires and non of the consequences.

[Warin]

All this negativity, man.

For some positives on burning ... some 'non prescribed',
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-22/ ... h/11716804

[Moondog55]

Because we need to intervene NNW
We spent the first 150 years of English settlement ruining what was there and IMO the only remedy is massive bio-remediation with geoforming. It's not as if we can't move gigatonnes of dirt rather quickly or make mountains. We can't stop the Austro-Indian plate from moving North but we can mediate climate by geo-forming parts of the country.
Why do we Australians as a nation always seem to think small?

[potato]

We need to intervene by doing more than thoughts and prayers on climate change... and maybe take a harder stance on arsonists.

[north-north-west]

Yes, we need to intervene, but intervention of a type that has already caused massive problems - such as large-scale irrigation - is not the answer.

[Moondog55]

Yes, we need to intervene, but intervention of a type that has already caused massive problems - such as large-scale irrigation - is not the answer.

If that was directed at myself it is the removal of those water wasting mega irrigation schemes I would place as the first priority where they occur in areas on fluctuating and unreliable rainfall. Simply upgrading may irrigation schemes to modern techniques and replacing open water channels with pipelines would also be high on my own list of priorities. However I do not see that as a problem in the Ord River district. The Murray -Darling system is a different problem and more urgent IMO.

[Moondog55]

We need to intervene by doing more than thoughts and prayers on climate change... and maybe take a harder stance on arsonists.

Short of bringing back the Death Penalty I'd like to see minimum sentences of 25 years plus confiscation of all assets