Bushfire hazard Reduction - worth it?

[slparker]

I'm sceptical of anything early settlers wrote as they were often writing home about the glorious opportunity of the new country. They tended to talk it up a bit.

There is one instance (Evans published pamphlet - ironically before he came to Tasmania) where colonial speculators 'talked up' the bountiful opportunities in Tasmania - but talked down the Indigenous (and bushranger) presence. The quotes I have mentioned are from diarists - not sources that were contemporaneously published. What would diarists and surveyors have to gain about describing how Aborigines burnt the land?

then i can only conclude, with all due respect, that you have a confirmation bias. You are thinking of reasons why the area could not have been burnt deliberately when the evidence leans towards the systematic and deliberate use of fire in many areas of Tasmania. Evidence which accords with that on Mainland Australia where fire was (and is) used for similar reasons by Indigenous people - an idea that seems less controversial.

[north-north-west]

I'm not rejecting the notion deliberate burning. I'm just pointing out that fire and aspects of the vegetation structure were around long before people arrived in Tas. The influence of people on the vegetation structure observed when Europeans arrived in Tas is something of debate. Button grass plains have been around longer than 41ka - did humans have much to do with their distribution after that..? Maybe yes but who really knows.

I'm sceptical of anything early settlers wrote as they were often writing home about the glorious opportunity of the new country. They tended to talk it up a bit.

I find this attitude rather ironic, given that the term 'fire-stick farming' was coined by an archaeologist who specialised in Tasmanian prehistory.

[potato]

We've come a long way since when Rhys Jones coined the term. It was actually applied to dry forests in the north of Australia.

[Neo]

Hot topic.
Interesting read

[taipan821]

Ok, the results from the survey

From 23 respondents, Hazard reduction burns, yay or nay

Strongly agree: 5 (21.74%)
Agree: 1 (4.35%)
Neither agree or disagree: 4 (17.39%)
Disagree: 7 (30.43%)
Strongly Disagree: 6 (26.09%)

Nay wins, with a grand total of 13 votes.

[GPSGuided]

I’d say it’s not much of a ‘win’ but illustrating the clear polarity on the issue, even when considering the likely sampling bias.

[whitefang]

If they did use fire in these environments it would have been very carefully managed to ensure that only low intensity fires developed, not the high intensity fires that prescribed burning aims to achieve.

In general, prescribed burning does not aim to achieve high intensity burning. They will usually be low to moderate intensity (flame height of up to around 6 metres) to consume surface, near surface and bark fuels.

[Hughmac]

Burning out the whole understory is what most people would consider a high intensity fire. I was speaking to a landholder in Hilltop today whose property was supposed to be almost surrounded by a 'controlled' burn last Friday, who told me National Parks had postponed the burn because it was too wet! The rainfall at Moss Vale, the nearest weather station I know, has been a total of 45mm over the last two months, compared to an average since 1869 of 172mm. They are clearly not aiming for a low to moderate intensity fire if that makes it too dry.