Fire alerts and track closures

[Nuts]

You can get an overview from here: http://www.fire.tas.gov.au/Show?pageId= ... 3050655156

[Hermione]

Hello Dan, if you go to ListMap on the right-hand side you will see layers, click on that then add layer. in the next box scroll down to emergency management, click on incident feeds then add fire boundaries with green plus sign. zoom in to area required.

I am all for staying informed but I wish I hadn't done that just now,it's bad enough on the TFS website but ListMap makes it even more brutally clear.

[geoskid]

aloftas:
All those photos are of lower areas. The main damage from the fires is up on the higher parts of the plateau, where the species are all alpine or immediate sub-alpine. As gayet has said, they are not adapted to fire. The do not regenerate, they do not regrow, they do not recover. They just die.
For that reason, you cannot do fuel reduction burns - a controlled burn would just destroy what it is supposed to save.

Whatever grows there now will not be the same ecosystems.

Yes NNW and I agree, it is a tragedy not yet of our full comprehension.

What I am saying, is what can be managed, should be managed.

If the surrounding areas have some partial control, this alone lessens the impact of any lightening, ember attack, the possibility of fire fronts.

I just feel that there is a somewhat lassiez faire ad hoc approach taken which has become far too sensitised and politicized.

Anyway, I hope we get more rain and some further insights into the actualities of managing this on what is a dwindling budget.

Peace NNW.

I don't see what you are getting at Aloftas. If these fires started [i]in[/I ]NP, WHA and have not reached certain (lines on map) borders yet, we are not talking about private landholders being remiss causing this.

One thing I have been thinking about is, If 'we ',(society) did regular fuel reduction burns in WHA, in what way could we still claim it to be 'Wilderness'. Would'nt it be like burning off the back part of the backyard to keep it how we like it to be?

Beauty, life, renewal is still there, if we don't have a superficial view of these values.

[geoskid]

Go and walk it. Take the blinkers off.

http://www.nga.gov.au/Federation/Detail ... rkID=26197

Yes, I'm a bit sad too. Life goes on though.

[aloftas]

aloftas:
All those photos are of lower areas. The main damage from the fires is up on the higher parts of the plateau, where the species are all alpine or immediate sub-alpine. As gayet has said, they are not adapted to fire. The do not regenerate, they do not regrow, they do not recover. They just die.
For that reason, you cannot do fuel reduction burns - a controlled burn would just destroy what it is supposed to save.

Whatever grows there now will not be the same ecosystems.

Yes NNW and I agree, it is a tragedy not yet of our full comprehension.

What I am saying, is what can be managed, should be managed.

If the surrounding areas have some partial control, this alone lessens the impact of any lightening, ember attack, the possibility of fire fronts.

I just feel that there is a somewhat lassiez faire ad hoc approach taken which has become far too sensitised and politicized.

Anyway, I hope we get more rain and some further insights into the actualities of managing this on what is a dwindling budget.

Peace NNW.

I don't see what you are getting at Aloftas. If these fires started [i]in[/I ]NP, WHA and have not reached certain (lines on map) borders yet, we are not talking about private landholders being remiss causing this.

One thing I have been thinking about is, If 'we ',(society) did regular fuel reduction burns in WHA, in what way could we still claim it to be 'Wilderness'. Would'nt it be like burning off the back part of the backyard to keep it how we like it to be?

Beauty, life, renewal is still there, if we don't have a superficial view of these values.

Right, so, firstly, I am not saying "in this instance" that private landholders are in anyway at all responsible for this. The discussion was primarily about the husbandry of the state as a whole, not as some segmented geography.

What I am getting at, is the seeming inability to grasp, that without any form of timely management, these catastrophic conflagrations are bound to happen

To drive the point home, ANY tended firesafe property mitigates the irisk to the whole.

A little akin to lighting a candle in a cave, it illuminates albeit perhaps dimly, the whole.

I think any argument garnered from casting aspersions to any is futile and frankly rather pointless.

Total redundancy.


Look around, do you see a managed landscape, or a charred one?

I hope that helps.

Peace.

[aloftas]

aloftas:
All those photos are of lower areas. The main damage from the fires is up on the higher parts of the plateau, where the species are all alpine or immediate sub-alpine. As gayet has said, they are not adapted to fire. The do not regenerate, they do not regrow, they do not recover. They just die.
For that reason, you cannot do fuel reduction burns - a controlled burn would just destroy what it is supposed to save.

Whatever grows there now will not be the same ecosystems.

Yes NNW and I agree, it is a tragedy not yet of our full comprehension.

What I am saying, is what can be managed, should be managed.

If the surrounding areas have some partial control, this alone lessens the impact of any lightening, ember attack, the possibility of fire fronts.

I just feel that there is a somewhat lassiez faire ad hoc approach taken which has become far too sensitised and politicized.

Anyway, I hope we get more rain and some further insights into the actualities of managing this on what is a dwindling budget.

Peace NNW.

I don't see what you are getting at Aloftas. If these fires started [i]in[/I ]NP, WHA and have not reached certain (lines on map) borders yet, we are not talking about private landholders being remiss causing this.

One thing I have been thinking about is, If 'we ',(society) did regular fuel reduction burns in WHA, in what way could we still claim it to be 'Wilderness'. Would'nt it be like burning off the back part of the backyard to keep it how we like it to be?

Beauty, life, renewal is still there, if we don't have a superficial view of these values.

I think NNW referred to it as Indigenous Mosaic Burning.

We used to call em firebreaks

Peace

[gayet]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-31/ecological-burns-bolster-growth-in-rare-plant-species/7127028
The above link is a short discussion on a burn process being investigated as a means of grassland management. It is only grassland, not alpine herb fields or old pine growth.

[geoskid]

I don't see what you are getting at Aloftas. If these fires started [i]in[/I ]NP, WHA and have not reached certain (lines on map) borders yet, we are not talking about private landholders being remiss causing this.

One thing I have been thinking about is, If 'we ',(society) did regular fuel reduction burns in WHA, in what way could we still claim it to be 'Wilderness'. Would'nt it be like burning off the back part of the backyard to keep it how we like it to be?

Beauty, life, renewal is still there, if we don't have a superficial view of these values.

Right, so, firstly, I am not saying "in this instance" that private landholders are in anyway at all responsible for this. The discussion was primarily about the husbandry of the state as a whole, not as some segmented geography.

What I am getting at, is the seeming inability to grasp, that without any form of timely management, these catastrophic conflagrations are bound to happen

To drive the point home, ANY tended firesafe property mitigates the irisk to the whole.

A little akin to lighting a candle in a cave, it illuminates albeit perhaps dimly, the whole.

I think any argument garnered from casting aspersions to any is futile and frankly rather pointless.

Total redundancy.


Look around, do you see a managed landscape, or a charred one?

I hope that helps.

Peace.

Haha. Enough of the poetry.

How do you suggest fires that start in NP, WHA be managed? BTW, in my scenario, they are nowhere near the boundaries over which your diligent farmers have slashed a tractor width break?

[aloftas]

lets take that road that services the wolfram mine....surely as an existing asset, it could be factored in as a viable useable access and control line?

just as one, of thousands of examples.

Diligence is the word...

Anyway, I am often wrong.

so, no poetry?

[DanShell]

Hello Dan, if you go to ListMap on the right-hand side you will see layers, click on that then add layer. in the next box scroll down to emergency management, click on incident feeds then add fire boundaries with green plus sign. zoom in to area required.

Thanks very much. Wow theres certainly some nice areas burnt but I hate to be devils advocate, its not as bad as I was perceiving it to be. Sure its not good, some of those areas will never regenerate back to their former glory but it could have been a lot worse.
Well done to the fire crews.

Most of the major areas simply have no access to fight fires. Fuel reduction burns in areas that are suitable to it will certainly help but having no access when a fire starts limits the ability to fight fire with fire.

Last edited by DanShell on Sun 31 Jan, 2016 6:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Hermione]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-31/ecological-burns-bolster-growth-in-rare-plant-species/7127028
The above link is a short discussion on a burn process being investigated as a means of grassland management. It is only grassland, not alpine herb fields or old pine growth.

I saw this article too and it's interesting if a little ill timed. Only in the sense that a great many people (i.e all my work colleagues) seem to have no idea that fragile alpine vegetation doesn't recover after fire in the way that a lot of our West Australian bush does, hopefully this won't confuse the issue. I also found some things in another article disturbing http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-31/rain-in-tasmania-helps-and-hinders-crews-battling-bushfires/7128124?section=tas. Particularly the this part where the TFS chief officer states that only 1% of the total WHA has been affected by the fires.
""To put that into context, of the 1.6 million hectares of World Heritage Area in Tasmania — and also considering that all that area impacted by fire won't be totally destroyed — but 1 per cent of World Heritage Area has been impacted by these fires and we're doing the very best we can to make sure that figure doesn't grow," ..."
What bothers me is that I doubt the whole WHA is composed uniformly of fragile alpine ecosystems, so 1% of the total WHA is likely a lot more than 1% of this particular alpine environment. Though obviously I don't know enough about this to really have any idea, nor do I know how badly other ecosystems in the WHA might be affected by fire.

[north-north-west]

I think NNW referred to it as Indigenous Mosaic Burning.

We used to call em firebreaks
Peace

Two different things.
The pattern of mosaic burning that aboriginal people undertook in some areas was not a fire mitigation process. It was essentially about keeping areas open for hunting. By burning small sections of ground here and there, there were always close-by areas in various stages of regeneration to which the wildlife could escape. It worked to some extent as wildfire mitigation, but that wasn't its purpose.

Firebreaks are designed purely to minimise the spread of wildfires, and they generally utilise much larger cleared areas.

[north-north-west]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-31/ecological-burns-bolster-growth-in-rare-plant-species/7127028
The above link is a short discussion on a burn process being investigated as a means of grassland management. It is only grassland, not alpine herb fields or old pine growth.

I saw this article too and it's interesting if a little ill timed. Only in the sense that a great many people (i.e all my work colleagues) seem to have no idea that fragile alpine vegetation doesn't recover after fire in the way that a lot of our West Australian bush does, hopefully this won't confuse the issue. I also found some things in another article disturbing http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-31/rain-in-tasmania-helps-and-hinders-crews-battling-bushfires/7128124?section=tas. Particularly the this part where the TFS chief officer states that only 1% of the total WHA has been affected by the fires.
""To put that into context, of the 1.6 million hectares of World Heritage Area in Tasmania — and also considering that all that area impacted by fire won't be totally destroyed — but 1 per cent of World Heritage Area has been impacted by these fires and we're doing the very best we can to make sure that figure doesn't grow," ..."
What bothers me is that I doubt the whole WHA is composed uniformly of fragile alpine ecosystems, so 1% of the total WHA is likely a lot more than 1% of this particular alpine environment. Though obviously I don't know enough about this to really have any idea, nor do I know how badly other ecosystems in the WHA might be affected by fire.

I've been having an exhausting and extremely frustrating time trying to explain things like this on the ABCs FB page. Too many people have learnt that 'Australian bush needs fire' mantra without the understanding that not all ecosystems need or can cope with it.

Rainforest, when burnt, is generally replaced by sclerophyll forest. It takes a very long time for the change back into transitional rainforest to get underway.
As you know, the endemic pines do not survive fires. They don't regenerate, the seeds are mostly killed. With the right conditions, in a few hundred years there may be some replacement trees growing - but given the changing climate, those conditions are unlikely to occur.
Cushion plants and the like don't survive either.

Bolster heath communities and many similar ecosystems will be replaced by something else - probably mixes of the hardier shrubs.
But whatever grows, it will be different to what was there before.

[north-north-west]

One thing I have been thinking about is, If 'we ',(society) did regular fuel reduction burns in WHA, in what way could we still claim it to be 'Wilderness'. Would'nt it be like burning off the back part of the backyard to keep it how we like it to be?

Beauty, life, renewal is still there, if we don't have a superficial view of these values.

I think some areas have had some burns. There have definitely been controlled burns in the SW.
Those parts of the WHA that are buttongrass, for instance, probably should be burnt where it's safe to do so. They were subjected to a regular burning regime by the Tasmanian Aboriginals over many thousands of years and have become adapted to that. The problem is, as DanShell said, the lack of access for sufficient equipment and personnel to make sure the fuel reduction fires are contained.

[aloftas]

I think NNW referred to it as Indigenous Mosaic Burning.

We used to call em firebreaks
Peace

Two different things.
The pattern of mosaic burning that aboriginal people undertook in some areas was not a fire mitigation process. It was essentially about keeping areas open for hunting. By burning small sections of ground here and there, there were always close-by areas in various stages of regeneration to which the wildlife could escape. It worked to some extent as wildfire mitigation, but that wasn't its purpose.

Firebreaks are designed purely to minimise the spread of wildfires, and they generally utilise much larger cleared areas.

Just a hats off to you NNW
you are generous and patient with a vast, thorough knowledge

we are indebted to your generosity in sharing with us
.

[Nuts]

Respectful lament for the area burnt, aside for now the promotion of global doom, in terms of fragile alpine biota, far worse could be to come. In a sense, to this all that matters is the fire front.. indicated by the 6000 hectares that were added since the last update of the 'Pelion' fire. That and the short term forecast. Dread those hot blustery northerlies, mid-summer spell, from which we've been largely spared.

[tastrax]

You can check out some fire history on the LIST mapping interface. Some areas can be quite interesting. Check out the fire on the Gordon River Road and its past history of planned burns.

http://maps.thelist.tas.gov.au/listmap/ ... kId=112440

I am not sure that ALL past burns (especially small ones) are in there but its a fair guide.

One thing I have been thinking about is, If 'we ',(society) did regular fuel reduction burns in WHA, in what way could we still claim it to be 'Wilderness'. Would'nt it be like burning off the back part of the backyard to keep it how we like it to be?

Beauty, life, renewal is still there, if we don't have a superficial view of these values.

I think some areas have had some burns. There have definitely been controlled burns in the SW.
Those parts of the WHA that are buttongrass, for instance, probably should be burnt where it's safe to do so. They were subjected to a regular burning regime by the Tasmanian Aboriginals over many thousands of years and have become adapted to that. The problem is, as DanShell said, the lack of access for sufficient equipment and personnel to make sure the fuel reduction fires are contained.

[icefest]

You can check out some fire history on the LIST mapping interface. Some areas can be quite interesting. Check out the fire on the Gordon River Road and its past history of planned burns.

http://maps.thelist.tas.gov.au/listmap/ ... kId=112440

Well, I guess that shows how planned burns don't necessarily prevent a fire burning.

[Chloe10000]

Can anyone advise re conditions in SW National Park if you enter from the East (ie Huon Track)? We have flights booked to arrive this week for a long planned Eastern Authurs walk but if its not safe to walk, will have to consider what else to do. Any advice would be great.

[gayet]

Well, I guess that shows how planned burns don't necessarily prevent a fire burning.

But it appears a lot of the Gordon River fire area hasn't been burnt in recent times. Unless I am reading it wrong....

[bumpingbill]

Can anyone advise re conditions in SW National Park if you enter from the East (ie Huon Track)? We have flights booked to arrive this week for a long planned Eastern Authurs walk but if its not safe to walk, will have to consider what else to do. Any advice would be great.

There doesn't seem to be any fires down there at the moment, http://www.fire.tas.gov.au/Show?pageId=colGMapBushfires

But it's worth checking with Parks

[north-north-west]

http://www.parks.tas.gov.au/index.aspx?base=7785

That should get you directly to TasPAWS' road and track closure page.

Last edited by north-north-west on Mon 01 Feb, 2016 3:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Lophophaps]

A very sad report.
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/li ... 131-gmi2re

[Hermione]

Thanks for the link Lophophaps there's not heaps in the news here in WA about it. Though I'd really like to wake up to some good news about these fires sometime soon!

[stepbystep]

The news is bad. Thankfully we dodged a major bullet. If the wind picked up we could have lost large sections of The Walls, The Reserve and the SW in one hit. It's high time we had intelligent discussion on land management, resource provision and allocation, and priorities when fire hits. Our politicians and senior bureaucrats are blinkered. Public opinion needs to shift, and education is the key.

Central Plateau devastation....

Attachments

[DanShell]

Two shocking photos, the one with the wallaby breaks my heart and I wish I didn't see it.

[Hermione]

I know the news is grim SBS I cried (wept is probably a better description) when I saw your photos on the weekend, but I thank you for taking them because people need to see this. I'm shocked that there isn't more public concern about this already (I know everyone on here is concerned), I want to shake people and tell them to wake up!
I'm also terrified at the prospect of how much more we stand to lose if they can't contain these fires soon and crying again now I saw the photo of the wallaby.

[stepbystep]

I'm sorry for the graphic nature of the image. It just scratches the surface of what I saw and the reality of fire in the landscape. I'm dealing with feelings of shock and grief and god knows what else. We must work to educate, educate, educate

[Hermione]

Don't be sorry SBS the whole world needs to see these photos. If I'm sitting here in Western Australia crying I can only imagine how you feel after seeing this first hand, so once again thank you.

[icefest]

Is that a tiny patch of green a piece of unburned cushiongrass in picture 1 Dan?

I wonder it it's possible to replant some of the native pine from seed stock that has survived. If we can keep at least the parts of peat that have not burned then we could have island communities that can spread as they are able.