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Bushfires 10-Dec-2006 At 9:25:29 AM JamesMc

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On 8/12/2006 cheesehead wrote:
>>... this would have prevented the hyuge hot summer fires that plague us
>>today. Why can't DSE get it right then ?
>
>As I understand it, it was considered that lighting fires in the bush
>was environmentally detrimental. That came back to bit us a couple of years
>ago, and we haven't (noticably) reassessed this policy.
>I can't remember where I learned this

It depends on the type of forest...

In the alpine area, they can't really do fuel reduction burns without real damage to the vegetation because alpine ash is killed by fire, and snow gums' trunks are killed, forcing the trees to re-grow from the base. These effects are obvious in any of the alpine area that was burnt a couple of years ago. As I understand, the same effect would have been caused by fuel reduction burns.

Also, normally wet forests only ever get dry enough to burn in an extreme drought. Controlled fuel reduction burns are not possible at any other time. Hence Otways & Mt Macedon etc in Feb '83.

Rain forest is destroyed by fire because both the trees and their seeds are killed. If they did fuel reduction burns in rain forest, there would be no more rainforest. You can see this in at Mt Field in Tasmania where pencil pine forest was killed in 1967 (or was it 68?) and has not started to regrow.

Normal dry eucalypt forest is another matter. It burns and recovers. Parks do lots of fuel reduction burns in this type of forest. Eg Grampians and the drier part of the Dandenongs.

Of course, there are plenty of dry eucalypt fuel reduction burns that "exceed expectations" and some of these are massive like the Moora Moora fire in the Grampians about 10 years ago, and the Wilsons Prom fire.

People love to criticize DSE / Parks Vic either because they
+ Don't do enough fuel reduction burns or
+ Do too many fuel reduction burns

They can't win ! Leave them alone.

James Mc