The way emergency services deal with Australian bushfires could be tipped on its head after new research potentially discredits hazard reduction burns.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
A University of Wollongong study published last week found the main drivers of how severe a fire could be came from the species of plants rather than surface fuel load.
In many instances the research showed getting rid of leaves and scrub could make forests more flammable.
Team leader Dr Philip Zylstra said controlled burning could be helpful under certain conditions though at other times it was counter productive.
He said while fire is needed, Australian forests have been burning more now than any time in the past tens of thousands of years, and controlled burning was not helping.
Dr Zylstra, who has been researching bushfires since 2004, said his latest study - Biophysical Mechanistic Modelling Quantifies the Effects of Plant Traits on Fire Severity- looked at the influence vegetation had on how fires behaved, something which has been “poorly understood”.
Can a few centimetres of leaf litter on the ground really give us enormous crown fires?
- Dr Philip Zylstra
“There are some immediate land management questions that can be answered with it now and that’s where the priority is,” he said.
“It is a big step. It’s the first time we’ve shown a clear link for how plants affect fire behaviour. People can see it, we’ve seen it for a long time, and ecologists have been arguing it for decades.”
Dr Zylstra said he wants to continue refining his research, such as testing the effectiveness of different management approaches or the effect of climate change, while it’s now up to authorities to listen.
“It’s kind of up to state governments to look at that and say whether they will go with that science or not,” he said.
Reducing fuel loads doesn’t automatically reduce the flammability of the forest ... fire germinates plants, kills trees and changes the whole environment.
- Dr Philip Zylstra
He explained while his model can already forecast how and where major bushfires will spread, the latest research has narrowed it further to better manage fuels in the landscape.
“Instead of assuming that burning will make the forest less fire prone, we can now look at that and say ‘if we burn this forest it kills these plants, but it germinates these other ones here’ and how will that then change the fire risk over the coming years and even decades,” he said.
Dr Zylstra said he holds grave fears for the NSW and Victorian Alpine forests, as well as other rainforests, as they’re being burnt so often they could be gone by the end of the century.
NSW RFS respond to shock research
NSW fire authorities say they will look further into groundbreaking bush fire research from the University of Wollongong which suggests hazard reduction burns may ineffective.
A Rural Fire Service spokesman said the organisation regularly reviews relevant research and is aware of Dr Philip Zylstra and the UOW research team.
Their latest study, published on August 16, almost contradicts what Australian firefighters have been doing for decades – using controlled burning to decrease the risk of a forest going up in flames.
According to the research, forests are least flammable when the trees are fully grown but controlled burning doesn’t allow this to happen.
“[The RFS] does consider vegetation in response to the planning and management of bush fires. We also take this in to consideration when making operational decisions,” the spokesman said.
“We are currently looking at this topic however given that his research is some way from operational application and due to the complexity of the models, it is not something we can readily adopt.”
- “Biophysical Mechanistic Modelling Quantifies the Effects of Plant Traits on Fire Severity: Species, Not Surface Fuel Loads, Determine Flame Dimensions in Eucalypt Forests.” Authors: Philip Zylstra, Ross A. Bradstock, Michael Bedward, Trent D. Penman, Michael D. Doherty, Rodney O. Weber, A. Malcolm Gill, Geoffrey J. Cary.