There are currently five papers in this section:

1. Bushfires, Prescribed Burning and Global Warming

2. Fire and Water 

3. Bidi Burning 

 4. Bush Fire Management in South- Western Western Australia

5. Avoiding Megafires in Australia 

 

Bush Fire Front Occasional Paper No 1

April 2008

Bushfires, Prescribed Burning and Global Warming

by Roger Underwood*, David Packham** and Phil Cheney***

*Chairman, The Bushfire Front Inc, PO Box 1014 Subiaco Western Australia, 6904

**Senior Research Fellow, School of Geography and Environmental Science, Monash University, Victoria.

***Honorary Research Fellow, CSIRO, Canberra, ACT

 

This is not a paper about climate change or the contentious aspects of the climate debate. Our interest is bushfire management. This is an activity into which the debate about climate change, in particular “global warming”, has intruded, with potentially damaging consequences.

Australia’s recent ratification of the Kyoto Treaty has been welcomed by people concerned about the spectre of global warming. However, the ratification was a political and symbolic action, and will have no immediate impact on the volume of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, and therefore will not influence any possible relationship between CO2 emissions and global temperatures.

However, the ratification could have an impact on Australian forests.  Spurious arguments about the role of fire contributing to carbon dioxide emissions could be used to persuade governments and management agencies to cease or very much reduce prescribed burning under mild conditions.

Two myths have emerged about climate change and bushfire management and are beginning to circulate in the media and to be adopted as fact by some scientists:

1.     Because of global warming, Australia will be increasingly subject to uncontrollable holocaust-like “megafires”.

 2.     Fuel reduction by prescribed burning must cease because it releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, thus exacerbating global warming and the occurrence of megafires.

Both statements are incorrect. However they represent the sort of plausible-sounding assertions which, if repeated often enough, can take on a life of their own and lead eventually to damaging policy change.

Why we have written this paper

Over the last 20 years, there has been a significant reduction in the amount of prescribed burning under mild conditions in Australian forests. This has occurred as a result of changes to the jurisdiction of public forests, and (in some cases) the transfer of responsibility for the control of forest fires from land management agencies to the emergency services.

This situation will worsen if there is a further reduction in the use of prescribed fire, based on a misunderstanding about the relationship between bushfires and CO2 emissions.

In this paper we look at the facts and the science as well as the uncertainties in the relationships between bushfires, prescribed burning, carbon and global warming. Our aim is to counterbalance some of the unsupported assertions currently being presented as fact on this subject. 

Plants and the carbon cycle

Green plants use the energy of the sun to convert CO2 gas from the atmosphere into solid carbon compounds in a process called photosynthesis.  Sooner or later, these carbon compounds are broken down and returned to the atmosphere by the processes of:

(i)     decay - the slow rotting-away of vegetation;

(ii)     respiration - breathing out CO2 by animals which have browsed on plants; or

(iii)     combustion - burning by fire.

To permanently remove carbon from the atmosphere it is necessary to confine it in stable compounds which will not be decayed, respired or burned. The permanent removal of carbon from the atmosphere is referred to as “sequestration”.

Carbon can be stored in highly stable structures such as diamonds and graphite (and to a lesser extent charcoal). These are, to all intents and purposes, removed from the carbon cycle.  Carbon captured by the forests of past geological times and which became coal was very effectively sequestered - until humans started to dig it out and burn it.

Carbon stored in plants is referred to as “Terrestrial Carbon”.  The rate at which plants capture and emit CO2 varies between different types of vegetation, and the way the vegetation is managed, especially the frequency and intensity of fire.  

Three typical Australian vegetation types

The three most widespread natural Australian vegetation types (or “ecosystems”) are tropical grasslands, tropical and subtropical savannahs and tall forests.

(i)     Tropical grasslands grow during the wet season, die off in the dry season and rot away or are eaten (and respired) by termites during the next wet season.  Each succeeding crop of grass is replaced by a new crop so there is no overall or long-term gain or loss of stored carbon.   If the grass is burnt during the dry season (and lightning caused fires are a common feature of tropical areas) the overall situation is no different, because the burnt plants would have decayed anyway.

But even in a grassfire, a small amount of carbon is converted to a stable, graphite-like substance called “black carbon” and incorporated into the soil. 

(ii)     Tropical and subtropical savannahs add a level of complexity to this scene. A savannah is “a natural parkland”, that is an area of grassland dotted with trees. In terms of area, number and frequency, most Australian bushfires occur in the savannahs of our north and inland regions.  Many savannah fires are “natural” being started by lightning, but there is also extensive prescribed burning undertaken in these areas, especially savannahs used for cattle grazing, and on Aboriginal reserves. Over time, the carbon balance of savannah fires is also just about neutral.  In some years more CO2 is emitted to the atmosphere from fires than is absorbed by post-fire regrowth, while in other years more carbon is taken up by regrowth than is lost to the atmosphere from fire (including prescribed burning and wildfires).

The difference depends upon the climatic conditions, particularly rainfall in the early regeneration period. Where fires are followed by high-rainfall years and heavy regeneration, more carbon is stored in vegetation than was released in the fire. However, taken over many years, the carbon released in fires in tropical savannahs is virtually the same as the carbon absorbed in regrowth.

If fire is deliberately excluded from these areas (which is difficult but has been achieved on some small experimental areas) there is an increase in bushfire fuels over time. Dead material on the ground rots or is consumed by termites, but fire fuel accumulates as bark on fibrous-barked eucalypts and in the woody shrubs that develop when fire is excluded.  This increase in the fuel load means that late dry-season fires are more intense, causing death and damage to live trees, and burning down dead trees. Intense fires will rapidly consume logs and branches on the ground which may otherwise have taken years to rot away.  Late dry-season fires in savannahs will therefore release CO2 to the atmosphere from the long-term carbon store; this carbon is will not immediately balanced by post-fire regrowth.

(iii)     Tall forests store carbon in tree trunks, bark, branches and roots, in woody shrubs and mid-storey vegetation and in the litter and accumulated organic debris on the ground.  Eventually all old trees begin to decay from within, and in the absence of fire, the accumulated litter on the forest floor begins to rot away. At this point, the rate of release of carbon through decay exceeds the rate of storage of carbon by new growth. Thus Australia’s “old growth” eucalypt forests eventually stop being a carbon sink and become a source of CO2.    

Australian eucalypt forests are naturally subject to periodic fire. Fires are started by lightning or humans. The material consumed in the fire is mostly the dead leaves, twigs, and limbs which have accumulated on the forest floor, plus the bark on fibrous-barked trees such as stringybarks.

Bushfires vary in their size, speed and intensity. This variation is mostly determined by the amount of “fine fuel” (defined as combustible material less than 6 mm in diameter).  If there is no fine fuel present, then larger dead fuel (such as old logs and branches) or the living fuel in the trunks and canopies of the shrubs and trees will not ignite and burn.  This is why even an intense fire goes out when it reaches an area which was burned recently, and carries no fine fuel.

However the total amount of fuel consumed by a bushfire depends on the amount of moisture in the fuel.  Dry fuels burn more intensely, and these intense fires dry out and burn the fine green fuels in front and above them.

Fuel reduction by prescribed burning employs low-intensity fires lit under mild weather conditions at a time when there is still some moisture in the fuel. This ensures that the flames are generally less than a metre high and the fire is confined to the surface layer of fine fuel and the green material in the low shrubs. 

 

A properly managed prescribed fire will be conducted at a time when organic matter (including charcoal) in the soil will not burn.  The ideal prescribed burn consumes only the surface fuels, leaving behind a layer of ash protecting the soil and the heavy logs.

By comparison, a hot summer bushfire burning under drought conditions will consume all of the surface fuels, including large logs and the organic matter in the soil which may have accumulated carbon for thousands of years.  An intense summer bushfire will even consume the canopies of the tallest trees. 

The amount of CO2 produced by a fire is directly proportional to the total amount of fuel consumed in the fire.

If a tall forest regenerates following the fire, the carbon released by the fire will only be depleted for a hundred years or so.  Unfortunately, the next 100 years is the very time in which computer models suggest maximum storage of terrestrial carbon is essential.

The worst possible outcome is repeated intense summer bushfires which not only kill the tall forest trees, but also sterilise the soil and incinerate soil-stored seed. By this means, a tall forest may eventually be converted to woodland and shrubland and the loss of stored carbon will be permanent.

 

What about the Kyoto Protocol?

When it comes to bushfires and carbon accounting, the Kyoto Protocol is flawed. This is because CO2 emissions from uncontrolled bushfires are exempt from Kyoto accounting, while the emissions from prescribed burning are not.   Under Kyoto “rules” a wildfire is considered to be a “natural” and unpreventable event like a volcano,; moreover, Kyoto is based on the concept that most fires around the world are grassfires or relatively low-intensity fires in savannah woodlands or open forests.  Kyoto argues that carbon released by grass and woodland fires would have been released by natural decay and is soon replaced by regrowth within one or two growing seasons.

Scientific research and long-experience in Australian eucalypt forests has demonstrated that forest management incorporating prescribed burning under mild conditions always reduces wildfire size and intensity.  Where prescribed burning is regularly carried out, the risk of a high-intensity bushfire at a later date is greatly reduced.

There is also an important philosophical point here. Exempting wildfires from Kyoto carbon budgets ignores the profound role of humans for tens of thousands of years as contributors to the Earth’s fire regimes.  It is odd reasoning that there can only exist a natural regime (good) and a human-affected regime (bad).  This argument leaves no room for changing human impacts.

Why is prescribed burning feared?

Some people oppose prescribed burning, and through political influence are able to restrict burning programs by land management agencies. Opposition is based on a fear that periodic mild fires “damage the environment”. This view is generally held by people who have no personal experience of the way the Australian bush is adjusted to (indeed thrives on) periodic mild fires.

The assertion that prescribed burning should cease due to its impact on global warming is relatively new. The argument is two-fold:

(i)      That prescribed burns generate smoke which contains CO2 and this is therefore “bad”; and

(ii)      The amount of CO2 released from a bushfire will be equal to the sum of the CO2 that is released from the fuel reduction burns that replace the wildfire, so you might just as well have the bushfire.

At first glance, the second of these assertions appears likely to be true. However like all processes in nature the real situation is far more complicated, especially when more accurate carbon accounting is undertaken.

Fire is a powerful ecological agent. Depending on the intensity, a fire will mineralize nutrients in the litter, stimulate or inhibit germination and change the light and moisture regime on the forest floor. These variables in turn will determine the composition and rate of growth of the post-fire biota.

To date, insufficient research has been made into the differential impacts on the carbon cycle of bushfires and of prescribed burning in tall forests. The distinction between intense wildfires and mild prescribed burns is almost never made in the climate literature. Fires of vastly different size and intensity are lumped together simply as “fire”, and it is assumed that the impacts and consequences are equal.  They are not and the innumerable combinations of factors that make up a fire regime (such as intensity, frequency, patchiness, size, season and so on), and the interactions of fire with different soils and vegetation types, makes the research task difficult and complex.

What about smoke?

Scientists are only just beginning to realise how complicated and subtle is the role of smoke and gases emitted from bushfires and prescribed burns. There are numerous interactions (some positive and some negative) between bushfire smoke, rainfall, ultraviolet radiation and the global radiation balance. Further complexities erupt when you consider the effect on incoming solar radiation of the smoke particles and gasses emitted from bushfires and prescribed burning.  It is now also well known that bushfire smoke is a powerful agent encouraging the germination of many Australian native plants.

The ideal management approach in Australian forests is one that incorporates periodic prescribed burning under mild weather conditions. Firstly, this will best protect environmental and human assets. But flowing on from this will be protection of the carbon store in the forest which is lost in hot summer bushfires. Although the precise data is still being developed, this fact is readily deduced from studying grassland and savannahs, where excellent research has been done.

This research confirms that mild early season burning is preferable to late season wildfires for all reasons, especially for its ecological benefits, but also including its role in protecting carbon storage.

Is “global warming” leading to increased occurrence of “megafires”?

Some environmentalists suggest that global warming is leading to an increase in the number of “megafires” (large, high intensity and unstoppable holocaust-like bushfires).

However, if the current climate change models are correct, there will only be an increase in average annual temperatures of between 2 and 4 degrees over the next 100 years. The effect of this on bushfire behaviour, by itself, will be trivial. Fire intensity is far more significantly affected by fuel quantity, fuel dryness and wind strength, than it is by temperature.

Some climate change computer models also suggest a significant reduction in rainfall, leading to increased fuel drying and increased fuel availability at lower temperatures. This is the same effect as that of drought, a phenomenon which is common in Australia.

When it comes to rainfall and bushfires, the critical factor is seasonality of rain. In Australia’s temperate regions, increased rainfall in late summer will generally lead to higher decay rates and generally lower fire dangers, while a corresponding decrease in winter rainfall will provide an extended opportunity for mild low-intensity burning.

Putting numbers to the relative carbon balance associated with prescribed burning and wildfire in Australian forests is extremely complex, and has the potential to engage science for at least another decade.  In the meantime, we know intuitively that more CO2 is emitted in high-fuel consuming summer bushfires than from low-fuel consuming prescribed burns. However, any accounting must consider not only the frequency (i.e. more low intensity vs. fewer wildfires with greater emissions) but also the rate of decomposition of unburnt biomass and rate of carbon absorption by regrowth.

Although the principles are clear, precise data is still lacking. However, practical observations in the bush are not lacking. Land management policies can be guided by decades of records of severe forest and water catchment damage by high-intensity fires and by long experience in the management of forests to meet ecological objectives, and protection of the public at large.

Bushfires, burning and global warming

There are many complexities, but conclusions can be drawn from the research done to date and from a first-principles understanding of carbon pathways in natural ecosystems. We conclude:

1.     It is likely that the carbon emission and absorption situation found in savanna ecosystems will also apply in forests. In other words, over time, the overall situation will be carbon-neutral. But prescribed burning under mild conditions is still favoured over hot summer bushfires because less fuel is consumed, and less carbon emitted in the short term.

 2.     The carbon released by mild prescribed burns is recovered quickly; carbon released by large high-intensity forest fires may take decades to be replaced.  Looking ahead from 2008, these decades are precisely the ones in which carbon storage needs to increase if the global warming computer models are correct.  Preventing large high-intensity fires should therefore be an essential part of carbon management policy.

3.     Not enough is known about the role of smoke in modulating climate. However, there is a growing body of research which shows that bushfire smoke helps to block incoming solar radiation (which heats the earth) and is an important catalyst for the regeneration of Australian plants. I

4.     Fire has always been a factor in the Australian environment, and historical records indicate that it is only recently that frequent mild fire has been deliberately taken out of the forest, to be replaced by infrequent high-intensity fire.

5.     The argument that wildfires are exempt, but the CO2 emitted by prescribed burns must be added-in to the national carbon accounts, is crooked thinking and is rejected.

Finally, we advocate that the Precautionary Principle must apply: this means playing safe while the research is being done.

Even if new research demonstrates little difference between large high-intensity wildfires and prescribed burning in terms of the carbon balance, high-intensity fires should still be prevented. This is because of their over-riding and devastating impacts on wildlife, soils, waterways and landscapes, their capacity to kill and injure humans, the cost and danger of suppression and the damage they inflict on community and private social and economic assets.

 

 

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 Bush Fire Front Occasional Paper No 2

FIRE AND WATER

By Dr Frank McKinnell

How could fire and water mix?

Of the five classical elements described by early Greek philosophers, fire and water were seen as opposites, After all, we use water to extinguish fire. However in the context of management of water catchments in Western Australia, there is a very close link between the two.

The surface water catchments located in forested country in the Darling Ranges, are a vital part of the water resources for the metropolitan area, the Goldfields and the Wheatbelt. How fire is managed in these forests has a critical influence on runoff, and thus the amount of water reaching the dams.

There are two main sorts of fires

The two main sorts of fires that occur in our forests are large, high intensity “killer” bushfires, and mild, low intensity green burns.

Large, high intensity wildfires have a devastating effect on forested water catchments. Large numbers of trees are killed, serious soil erosion is caused and water quality in the reservoirs deteriorates. While in the year after a hot wildfire, runoff increases (by as much as double the normal amount), the regrowing forest, composed of a higher proportion of water-hungry young trees, uses more water than normal for many years, thus causing an overall reduction in water storage in dams.

Green burning (sometimes called “prescribed burning”) on the other hand, prevents the development of large, high intensity wildfires, Green burning is the practice of running mild fires through the undergrowth under mild weather conditions every few years. This allows intense summer bushfires to be readily controlled in areas where fuel loads are low because of past mild burns. Furthermore, water yields increase by up to 30 percent for two years after a green burn. Thus, by burning under mild conditions at 5-6 year intervals in the northern jarrah forest, we can have additional water in our dams and at the same time give our forests and our outer suburbs better protection from hot summer bushfires.

The current practice of the Department of Environment and Conservation is to carry out a prescribed burn in water catchments about every 10-12 years. In our view this is grossly inadequate; water flow into dams is decreased as a result and the risk of damaging high intensity fires is greatly increased

What are the financial implications?

Apart from making our forests healthier, putting more water in our dams, and reducing the risk of wildfire damage to life and property, there are financial benefits from a green burning regime. Let’s do a little back-of-the envelope calculation.

There are about 450,000 hectares (ha) in the surface water catchments, of which about 150,000 ha are in the high rainfall western zone. This high rainfall area yields an average of about 100 mm of water, or 1000 kilolitres (kL)/ha flowing into dams every year. With a 30% increase in runoff, this means an additional 300kL/ha per year.

Prescribed (green) burning costs about $50/ha to implement. A 12-year burning cycle would burn about 12,500 ha a year, while a 5 year cycle would require that 30,000 ha be burned, a difference of 17,500 ha each year. The additional annual cost of burning on a 5-year cycle would be $875,000.

A 5-year burning cycle would result in at least 17,500 x 300 kL=5,250,000 kL additional water into the dams (ie, 5.25 Gigalitres). At a conservative price of 80 cents per kL, the additional volume of fresh water in our dams would be worth at least $4million!  In fact, the increased water yield after burning would last for about two years and the real benefit is about twice that figure.

This benefit: cost ratio will increase with the forthcoming increase in water charges that have been foreshadowed by the government. It’s also cheap water compared with that coming from the first desalination plant, quoted as $1.00 per kL and about $2.00 per kL from the second desalination plant.

A win-win opportunity

Here is a potential win-win situation for the forest, for our precious water supplies, for people living near forests, and for the general householder. We can protect our forests from killer bushfires, while generating more cheap fresh water.

Why the hell aren’t we doing it? (With apologies to Lara Dingle)

 

For more information on fire and catchment management see the following websites:

 

Department of Environment and Conservation WA:

www.naturebase.net/fire management/fire and the environment/fire and water production

Water Corporation of WA:

www.watercorporation.com.au       Wungong Whispers Vol 4 and Vol 5.

 

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 Bush Fire Front Occasional Paper No 3 

BIDI BURNING: Shall Bushfire be Our Friend or Foe?

by David Ward

Email: mumpnpop@iinet.net.au

Given summer lightning, and vandals, bushfire is an unavoidable feature of the jarrah forest. Since it is inevitable, we have to choose between making fire our friend, or our foe. Nyoongar people made fire their friend, and so lived, for thousands of years, in and near the jarrah forest. They had no firetrucks, water bombers, television journalists, or the Salvation Army to give them breakfast. Their fire management was more intelligent, and frugal, than ours. Through history and mathematics, we must learn from them, before our summers become a nightmare of uncontrollable, and unaffordable, bushfires.

 As recently as 1966, a Conservator of Forests, Roy Wallace, talking of the 1920s, said that it is not unreasonable to assume that the forest was completely burnt through every 2-4 years. Even as late as 1925 the writer was able to observe three fires of this nature in unmanaged virgin forest east of Jarrahdale. These fires were alight in December and continued to burn until the following March.

It was only after the First World War, under Charles Lane-Poole, that the Forests Department began trying to suppress bushfires. At first, the department would send one man, on a bicycle, to put a fire out. He carried an axe on his crossbar, and cut down a marri sapling, with which to beat the fire. This is only possible in 2-4 year old fuel. As fuels have become heavier, due to ill-advised fire exclusion, so the bushfires have become fiercer. Imagine one man, on a bicycle, being sent to fight that recent fire at Karagullen. Fire is now, needlessly, our foe, and fire is winning.

Lane-Poole’s aversion to fire was based his training in France, and on advice from his mentor, the international forestry consultant, Sir David Hutchins. Despite his hatred of forest fire, Hutchins had to admit, in a 1916 report to the West Australian Government, that …”from an unknown period the Australian forest has been subject to the fires of the Blacks, fires lit for the purpose of providing food and hunting-grounds for the game. With the advent of the Whites, the fires have become more severe….”

An even earlier observer, Joseph Strelley Harris, was the first Inspector General of Timber. He was an excellent bushman, and mixed much with Nyoongar people. I believe his descendants still live in Perth. In 1882 he said, in a report to the Governor, “There would be practically no difficulty in stopping bush-fires, but no great advantage would accrue from the attempt - sooner or later fires will come, and the advantages gained by bush-fires more than counterbalance the disadvantages. In fact, such conflagrations are frequently advisable. Leave the forest unburnt for a few years, allow the shrubs to flourish, fallen trees to thicken on the ground, with dead leaves impregnated with turpentine, to accumulate and the destruction of the aged Jarrah, the many young plants and seeds will be completed. Allow the fires as a rule to take their course - if possible every 2 or 3 years.“

The Nyoongar word for a track is bidi. There were many throughout the south-west before Europeans arrived, and Nyoongar burning would have been most frequent close to such tracks and creeks, so maintaining a relatively fine mosaic. Further out, the mosaics were most likely coarser. We can learn from the traditional custodians of the land, by burning often along tracks and creeks.

These fires would have been mild and patchy, leaving plenty of refuge for animals, and that minority of native plants which cannot stand frequent burning. With generally mild burning, rocky areas, and moist or shady areas would have been protected from fire. Nature has a better capacity for organising itself than some can understand.

There is a branch of mathematics known as Knot Theory. Below I show a mosaic developed using Knot Theory.

 

Such a mosaic would not be difficult to establish along a creek or track in the bush. Once established, the patches could be burnt at any cyclic interval, from biennially up to the number of patches in the mosaic. Those interested in art may see a resemblance to the traditional Indian art form known as rangoli, or kolam. Others may see the wagyl serpent. Fire, art, and mythology are closely entwined.

Interestingly, bushfire mosaics have a fractal quality, in that each burnt patch can be, in itself, a mosaic of second-order burnt and unburnt, due to the presence of rocks, moist, shady places, southerly aspect, animal diggings etc. This second-order mosaic will be most pronounced when fires are frequent and mild, in low fuel. It will disappear when long fire exclusion and heavy fuel loads create large, fierce fires, and total burnout. Some firefighters refer to this as the Hiroshima effect.

 A good example of the Hiroshima effect, due to heavy fuel, was at Mt Cooke a few years ago. There are others, notably in National Parks, where long fire exclusion has been attempted. Due to an ecologically inept fire policy, King’s Park bushland has been ravaged by two fierce fires since 1980.

 In Africa, cattle people and hunters have long burnt in a mosaic pattern, to get rid of ticks, and bring up fresh feed. Kruger National Park burned fiercely in 2001, due to ill-advised attempts at fire exclusion. Twenty humans were killed, plus large animals such as elephant and rhino. In 1988, Yellowstone National Park burned fiercely for the same reason. Information on these fires can be found on the internet.

 By bidi burning, we could protect hills suburbs from future uncontrollable bushfire. It would definitely help two iconic plants, the balga (Xanthorrhoea preissii) and the djiridji (Macrozamia riedlii). Both benefit from ash. After fire, the balga flowers, and the djiridji produces cones, then the red nuts known as byoo, an important food for Nyoongar people, who knew how to leach the poison out.

 I hope DEC, FESA, and Volunteer Bushfire Brigades, will consider the merits of bidi burning. Much of it can be done, quite safely, in winter. As fuels are reduced, we could return to the summer burning used by Nyoongars, allowing fires to trickle on, in a friendly, self-organizing fashion, until the autumn rains. It would be cheaper, and we would see more kangaroos and wildflowers. Vandals would be completely baffled.

 

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 Bush Fire Front Occasional Paper No 4

 

 

BUSHFIRE MANAGEMENT IN SOUTH-WESTERN WESTERN AUSTRALIA

February 2009

The Bushfire Front Inc [*1] has reviewed bushfire management in south-western Western Australia, in particular the degree to which current management meets the requirements for Best Practice in the bushfire prevention and in preparedness for fires and fire damage mitigation.

Our review indicates that actual performance fails to comply with every one of the ten key performance measures set out in our Best Practice template [*2]. The review is supported by the fact that every summer there are serious and damaging bushfires, a problem which is worsening despite increasing government expenditure.

In this paper we examine the historical development of an effective system of bushfire management in Western Australia, the way the major principles have been undermined in recent years, and we put forward a proposal for change.

This paper focuses on two aspects of a large problem:

 

•  the southwest of the state, where most of the population lives and values threatened by bushfires are highest [*3]; and
•  privately owned land, which is where most fires occur, and where the highest value (human lives) are concentrated. A separate paper will look at the equally serious situation on Crown lands in the south-west.

Evolution of effective fire management on private property

During the middle-years of the last century, an excellent and effective approach to bushfire management on private land evolved. This approach was based on four principles:

The system which developed from these principles was never perfect, but it represented a model for a practical system to minimise bushfire occurrence and damage on private land, a model to which steady improvements in practice could be applied. Furthermore, up until the early 1990s it was supported (in the south-west) by the Forests Department and then CALM who at that time provided leadership  by example, especially in the planned management of bushfire fuels on neighbouring State forests through an effective annual prescribed burning program.

Things have changed - for the worse

Over the last 15 years all of these system elements have been eroded.

In the first place, a great many properties now have owners but not occupiers, for example the hobby farms and weekenders on former farmland adjoining Perth city, along the Leeuwin-Naturaliste Ridge or in“retreat“ areas like Denmark.  Furthermore, many owner/occupiers of land in the most bushfire-vulnerable rural areas are no longer farmers but are city people with no experience or skills in bushfire management, especially fuels management. Bushland where once fuels were managed by grazing or occasional burning, are now “left to nature“, and become increasingly hazardous as every year goes by.

Next, many Shire Councils are no longer willing or able to enforce the provisions of the Bushfires Act relating to fuels management. A blind eye is turned to owner/occupiers who allow their properties to become a serious fire hazard.

The Bushfire Board no longer exists. It was taken over by the Fire and Emergency Service (FESA), an organisation whose whole ethos is “emergency response“, not preparedness and damage mitigation. The FESA approach is to spend more and more money on firefighting, with ever-increasing expenditure on equipment to be called in after a fire starts, rather than on the year-in year-out attention to fuel reduction, prevention, training and promotion of good fire planning.

The loss of the Bushfire Board has had another outcome: no longer is there any external body with an interest in the bushfire management performance of government departments. Agencies like the Water Corporation, Railways, Main Roads, Land Corp and so on, who are major land owners and occupiers, and organisations like Western Power who are historically a major source of bushfires, are today able to escape independent monitoring of their activities when it comes to fire. The result is inattention to fuels management or ignition risk, without accountability.

Finally the volunteer fire brigade system in Western Australia is in danger of disappearing. Every year the number of volunteers declines and the age of volunteers goes up. The old and honourable system of “I‘ll help my neighbours, because sooner or later it will be my turn to need help“ has been eroded and replaced by a “Why should I worry?“ attitude, “If a fire starts, the waterbombers and FESA will turn up!“

The current approach has been tried before and failed before

On a previous occasion (in the 1960s), the Bushfire Board was placed under the administrative control of Emergency Services and the Minister for Police and Emergency Services. The move was a failure, because under this system, the Bushfires Act was no longer supported. This led to a review and a reversion to the previous situation, with outstanding benefits for bushfire management. For unexplained reasons, the Government then returned to the failed model, which is still applying, and again failing, today.

Many people fail to understand the basic fact of bushfires in Australia

There is a basic fact about bushfires in Australia, understood by experienced land managers, but totally misunderstood by most people in the community including people in FESA. This is: if bushfire fuels are allowed to accumulate, as they naturally do in all eucalypt forests and other native vegetation, sooner or later a fire will occur that is unstoppable by any fire-fighting force.

Inevitably the day comes when there are high temperatures and strong winds and a fire starts. In heavy fuels the fire intensity quickly becomes so great that fire fighters are overwhelmed and great damage occurs [4].

Our proposal

The Bushfire Front recognises the many significant social and administrative changes which have occurred in recent years, and the resultant decline in the standard of bushfire management in Western Australia. This has led to an increased threat to communities, assets and the environment. We therefore make two recommendations:

1. The formation of a new agency with the role of overseeing bushfire management in south-western WA.

The new agency will be modelled on the old Bushfire Board, and will be established under the Bushfires Act. There will be a small number of professional staff, but overall authority will rest with appointed members representing relevant government departments, south-west Shires and independent bushfire specialists. The focus of this agency will be:

It is not proposed that this organisation take over fire response arrangements from FESA. Fire response is FESA‘s expertise; they will be better able to concentrate on this, and to fight fires more cheaply and safely if another organisation is working exclusively to upgrade fire preparedness, damage mitigation and fire prevention by actively ensuring fuel quantities and thus a reduction in bushfire intensities. The work of the new agency will also be a boon to police, as it will reduce the pressure on them to evacuate communities threatened by killer bush fires.

The work of the new agency can be partly funded by the Bush Fire Levy, but will soon pay for itself, through the steady year by year reduction in expenditure on suppressing huge bushfires and funding post-fire recovery.

2. A new approach must be developed to provide fuel management services to landowners who are legally required to undertake hazard reduction, but lack the resources or the skills.

This new approach will require professionally led and properly equipped teams who can undertake prescribed fuel reduction work by contract, helping landowners to ensure fire hazards are responsibly and professionally reduced.

The approach would itself be subject to monitoring, so as to ensure the work meets, for example, environmental protection guidelines. Fuel reduction need not always involve fire. In some cases it could involve mowing or slashing or even grazing. Fuel reduction work would be done by prescription, and records would be maintained.

There are two ways this could be done:

 

The appointment of an innovative Chief Executive with professional skills and experience will be an essential part of the new “Bush Fires Board“ to lead the development of this concept.

It is not proposed that Shire crews or commercial contractors would be responsible for fire suppression, but it is reasonable to expect that they would be used in fire fighting operations as part of agreed arrangements developed in advance.

Conclusion

Bushfire management on private land in south-western WA is in a parlous state. Increasingly, preparedness and damage mitigation has given way to a suppression-oriented approach, an approach that will always fail in the face of an intense bushfire. Communities in the most fire-vulnerable areas are no longer willing or able to look after themselves, as was once the case, and there is a dearth of leadership from government and local authorities. Some communities in the South West are at serious risk now, and face substantial housing and infrastructure losses, and possibly human life as well. The recent fire at Bridgetown which caused extensive property and environmental damage could so easily have resulted in loss of life had the wind changed slightly.

Decisive intervention is required to deal with this crisis. Changing demographics, changing social factors, government institutions no longer providing a strong example, and increasing hazards on Crown land as well as private land - all at a time when rainfall is declining in the south-west and there is a fear of rising temperatures - mean that the existing system must be changed. It is not coping now, and will become progressively less able to cope in the future.

In the view of the Bushfire Front, the time for action is now.

We are aware that FESA has had the Bushfires Act and its implementation under review for some time but nothing has been forthcoming. We call on the Minister to stimulate this process and activate the changes we propose here. This is absolutely essential to revitalise the Act and to provide an organization capable of implementing these changes.

 

 Jarrah forest completely defoliated in the 2009 Bridgetown fire.

Notes:

1. The Bushfire Front Inc is an organisation of professional fire scientists, land managers and fire management specialists, independent of government or industry. Our objective is for bushfire management in WA to meet international standards of Best Practice, with the underlying aim of reducing bushfire damage to people, community assets and the environment.

2. For a detailed appraisal of the situation in WA compared with Best Practice, refer to the remainder of our website 

3. This paper does not deal with the situation in Western Australia outside the south-west. It is acknowledged that there is also a serious bushfire problem in the north-west and the Kimberley region.

4. Research has shown that 95% of bushfire damage is done by less than 2% of bushfires! These are the fires we must aim to prevent.

 

 

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  Bush Fire Front Occasional Paper No. 5

    Avoiding Megafires in Australia

The Bush Fire Front  April 2009

In the wake of the 2009 Victorian fire disaster the role of prescribed burning in relation to large wildfires (mediaspeak = megafires) has become a hot topic in the media, at academic seminars and on the internet. There have been numerous newspaper articles and TV grabs for and against the practice.

Prescribed burning is the planned use of low intensity fire, under mild weather conditions, to reduce fuel loads over broad areas of forested land.

On the one hand we have the “firies” (people with experience in bushfire management and firefighting) and people who have been directly affected by the fires. This sector is making very clear demands for greatly increased prescribed burning programs to prevent this sort of disaster ever happening again.

On the other hand we have a raft of academics and green activists giving their take on the issue. Their position is confusing, in that they say they support “targeted” or “strategic” prescribed burning, but oppose broad-acre fuel reduction. In general they oppose effective prescribed burning programs.

 A fair summary of their attitude is as follows:

1. Large intense wildfires are inevitable and are just something we have to accept as part of life, especially as a result of “global warming”.

2. Fuel reduction burning is useless, as it has no benefit in reducing fire intensity under severe fire weather.

3. Prescribed burning causes untold ecological damage. We don’t know what this damage is, but it is serious. Based on the precautionary principle we should not do it, or at least minimise its use.

4. People should not live in the bush at all, but if they do they should live underground, or at least be able to retreat underground whenever a fire approaches.

 

Let’s look at each of these points in turn.

Large wildfires are inevitable

This statement is, to put it politely, bosh. Large wildfires can only occur when there is a combination, at the same time, of three things:

      an ignition source,

      severe fire weather and,

      a large contiguous accumulation of fuel.

Remove any of these three and you cannot have a large wildfire.

We obviously can’t control the weather, nor can we hope to eliminate all possible avenues of ignition. The only factor we can control is the large contiguous accumulations of fuel. Therefore, broadscale fuel reduction burning is the only defence we have against large wildfires. This will not prevent fires occurring, but it will ensure fires are less intense, are easier and safer to control and will do less damage.

Does it work? Yes it does, as has been shown many times, over many years, by the experience of Western Australian forest managers. The “proof of the pudding” is the incidence of large wildfires in Western Australian forests over the last 50 years. There were a number of very large fires in Western Australian forests from 1900 to 1960, but after the 1961 Dwellingup fire disaster, the wide-scale fuel reduction program carried out by the then Forests Department, ensured that the fuel accumulation was well controlled. The graph below demonstrates this very clearly. It was only after the burning program gradually fell away following a diversion of resources away from forest areas, that the area of wildfires began to climb again after about 1990.

 

 

While the annual burn area was about 300,000 ha, it can be seen that the area of wildfires was at a minor level. Once the area slipped to the present average of about 200,000 ha the annual area of wildfire began to climb. So a certain minimum amount of prescribed burning is necessary to achieve a high level of protection. This idea of a threshold level of burning is missed by most people who are inexperienced about fire, and is the flaw in the argument that prescribed burning is OK so long as it is restricted to small areas around settlements.

The idea that large wildfires are an inevitable consequence of global warming is illogical. The fact is that if a proper system of fire management is instituted, involving efficient detection, good access, fuel reduction and an effective fire fighting force, the computer-generated predictions of future climate will add a new challenge, but will not make intense bushfires inevitable.

 

Fuel reduction burning is useless

A classic example of the effectiveness of a burning program in stopping a wildfire under severe weather conditions is given on this website at Reference Material>Examples of the Value of Prescribed Burning No 2. The 1978 fire at Donnybrook, WA, occurred under very severe conditions. It began on farmland and was driven by a 130 km/h gale, caused by the errant tropical cyclone Alby, and headed directly for the town of Donnybrook. The fire ran into State forest and was stopped dead by a broad-acre 6-month old prescribed burn.

It is noteworthy that those who make the claim that burning is useless are mostly people with no practical experience in fire management. Their stance is purely ideological as they ignore the many years of on-ground experience of forest fire managers and the solid body of research that demonstrates unequivocally that fuel reduction burning does indeed reduce the impact and extent of wildfires.

A key issue, however, is the extent of fuel reduction burning. While some green organisations will accept some “targeted fuel reduction burning”, they are opposed to broadscale burning. If “targeted” means small buffer areas around settled areas then this is futile. Buffer burns like that will not stop large wildfires, as they will simply throw spot fires over the buffer zone. Worse still, this approach means abandoning the main forest area to the devastating impact of large wildfires.

 

Prescribed burning causes untold ecological damage

This is a common argument among academics and green activists, but in fact is just a speculation that fits their ideological stance. It is futile to call, as they do, for complete knowledge of every little impact of fire on every component of the biota.

What we do know, without any doubt whatever, is that Aboriginal burning prior to European settlement of Australia was all-pervasive over the continent. Virtually anything that would burn did burn, and on the evidence of early European observers, the burning was done under weather conditions so that the fires were under full control. This could not have happened if fuel loads were high.  Indeed, there is convincing evidence that in the south west of Australia, at least, the frequency was about 2-4 years in the dry sclerophyll forest types. This practice, as well as the influence of lightning-caused fires, means that the biota in general is well adapted to fire – although some species have very specific requirements as to intensity and frequency.

We also know, and it was amply demonstrated again in Victoria in February 2009, that large high intensity wildfires have a devastating ecological effect. While we do not yet have any data from those fires, we do have some data from smaller wildfires in Western Australia that illustrate this point.

In 2003 there was a 25,000 ha wildfire at Mount Cooke, in the northern Jarrah forest, where post-fire evaluations were carried out. The fuel in most of the fire area was about 17 years old, carrying about 18 tonnes/ha of fuel. It was almost completely burnt out by a crown fire, and areas of bushland on Mt Cooke itself, regarded as fire refugia as they had not been burnt during three rotations of previous prescribed burning, were completely burnt-out by the high intensity fire. The masthead photograph for the BFF website shows the fire steaming up Mt Cooke, obliterating all in its path.

 

 

A post fire evaluation estimated that the fire had killed about 10 million of the overstorey trees outright. 10 million!! Whereas there had been multiple seral stages across the fire area before 2003, the fire reduced the whole area to one simplified seral stage. The BFF has not noticed any academic or green activist expressing any concern over this disastrous outcome.

 

People should not live in the bush, except underground

People like to live in the bush, have always done so and will continue to want to do so. Many thousands already live in the bush. It is true that these people should take special precautions to minimise the risks of being consumed in a bushfire. The necessary measures, in terms of planning and designing new residential areas, building houses that are appropriate for a fire-prone environment, and protecting existing houses are all well known, and can be implemented right now.

Putting people underground so that they survive bushfires is an unattractive option, suggestive of powerlessness and resignation. A far better solution is to manage the situation so as to minimise the risk. Furthermore, simply putting people underground ignores the damage done by bushfires to social and economic infrastructure left on the surface: the schools, churches, stores, roads, bridges, powerlines, railways and water supplies which are also vulnerable to high intensity fires.

The Bush Fire Front supports the principle of house construction to minimise bushfire risk, and the development of a safe haven within houses in bushfire prone environments. We also support the policy of Stay and Defend a Well Prepared House, or Leave Early.

But most of all we promote effective fuel management by prescribed burning, both of bushland in and around settlements, and on the broad-acres beyond where massive fires do terrible environmental damage. Some people might choose to treat the Australian bushfire summer like a never-ending war-time blitz, retreating to the bomb shelters every hot windy day. There is a better, and far more attractive and effective alternative: keep the bush well burnt, and keep your house well prepared.

 

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