Glenn Rudolph DEPI
Glenn started by showing photos of the experimental burn they did in the Wannon heathland mid July this year, which Dave R has alluded to in his piece. This area has not been burnt since the 60’s and is a very valuable small mammal habitat. It would be disastrous to have a large fire go through it so they wanted to see how a winter burn would help break it up. They used only 3 matches to light it, no accelerants. They waited till a day when the temperature was below 15, and the fuel moisture level was 16% and lit it in the afternoon. There was much dead grass. Flame heights reached 2 to 3 m. By 5.45 the edges were starting to self extinguish, by 6pm only small pockets were still alight, by 10 pm it was completely out. It reached 8 ha and were very happy with the outcome. They did prefire camera monitoring, and will continue post fire , and used a Tasmanian expert on button grass fires to help the planning.
Glenn then started discussion on this year’s FOP.
Total burn targets – each of these includes about 1000ha of other methods of control eg slashing:
- yr1: 24,500ha,
- yr2: 27,000 ha,
- yr3: 35,000ha.
Most of the work will be done in the Serra Range area. He showed us a map of one large complex area with different needs, which will need different patterns of burning. There was a query why such a large area selected? Answer: because they want to make the control lines on existing tracks.
We discussed the dilemma of what and when to burn of the 2006 fire area, in the light of research on how the vegetation of different vegetation classes changes in time after a fire. If we do nothing, too much of the Park will be the same age, with no space for new plants to come in. He drew a rough graph of how it would look in 5 years, 10 years. So they would like to start burning up to 100ha of the 2006 burnt area each year, except for the mature trees. There was general agreement that this made sense. We would like to see some winter burning near the old growth areas to protect them. Someone commented that before the Mt Stapylton fire over 30 years ago the moss beds on Flat Rock were 18 inches deep, and they are only now coming back.
There was a question about monitoring the spread of the African weed orchid as the burnt part of Rocklands had lots of it. Ryan admitted they hadn’t done anything as yet, and didn’t know what they could afford to do.
Protecting the gullies as John White says presents a real problem and dilemma. They are vital refuges, but in a wildfire they are also the chimney that takes a fire up to the top. The burnt wet gullies on the Victoria Range will take 30 years to recover.
There was much discussion of need to mosaic burn and aboriginal burning practices. Also for the desirability of unburnt patch areas for refuges against the desire to have the fire blacked out. Public outcry if a planned fire escapes eg Terrick Terrick. Discussion of indigenous practices, more burns in winter, more small burns, how to resource, how to better work with CFA inside park especially with changing management structures and shrinking resources in PV and DSE. There was some discussion of township protection. Halls Gap has a good level of treatment of fuels. Some thought that Laharum is a problem as it is largely the fuel on private properties that causes concern.
In general unofficial discussion after, I felt that many in DEPI and Parks agree the post Black Saturday burn targets are wrong, but they are trying to live with them in the hope they will be changed.
The FOP is on the website of DEPI, and you are encouraged to make comments.