Category Archives: Forests

A single mountain ash log on Geoff McPhee’s truck at the FCV East Warburton checking station. 5004 super feet – Hoppus (15 m3). December 1970. Photo: Gregor Wallace collection

At many places across the State forests of the Central Highlands there were large and dense stands of silver wattle (Acacia dealbata) which had replaced the original mountain ash (E. regnans) forests because of repeated bushfires in 1926, 1932 and 1939. By the early 1970s, silvicultural knowledge had grown after the pioneering work by forestersContinue reading “Burning at Night.”

Librarian, Dr Fiannuala Morgan, recently used historical newspaper records held in Trove to reconstruct and map bushfire occurrence from 1850 to 1900. The major bushfires in colonial Victoria in 1851 and 1898 are well known but there is not much information for the periods in between. Trove holds millions of digitised pages from old newspapersContinue reading “Mapping colonial bushfires using historical newspapers.”

It’s been said many times before, that internationally, south-eastern Australia is considered one of the three most fire-prone landscapes on Earth. The other places being southern California and the southern Mediterranean. Bushfires have undoubtedly always been a feature of Australian summers. In an average year, between 600 and 1000 bushfires occur in Victoria’s National ParksContinue reading “Fire Management – 101. Eastern Victoria’s Recurring Bushfires.”

Many seasoned firefighters advocate for a return to the methods used in the 1960s and ‘70s when the Forests Commission lit small spot fires on main ridges in the back country during autumn and let them trickle down the slope and go out overnight, or in a day or two. These small, widely spaced spotContinue reading “Fire Management – 101. The case for landscape burning.”

Fuel Reduction Burning / Mosaic Burning / Landscape Burning / Asset Protection Burning / Hazard Burning / Slash Burning / Patch Burning / Ecological Burning / Back Burning / Cool Burning / Indigenous Cultural Burning… are all these terms more or less the same thing? Well… it depends on the objectives of the burn… FuelContinue reading “Fire Management – 101. Fuel Reduction Burning (FRB) – Part 2.”

Put simply – less fuel equals less fire. Reducing the overall fuel load, particularly bark fuels, together with changing near surface and elevated fuel arrangement by burning or mechanical treatments like slashing or mulching are the only large-scale techniques that forest managers have available to them of lessening bushfire behaviour. Fire weather cannot be controlled,Continue reading “Fire Management – 101. Fuel Reduction Burning (FRB) – Part 1.”

By the early 1960s, there was a growing recognition by Australian foresters of the need for large-scale controlled burning to reduce fuel loads. Alan McArthur published his landmark paper, “Controlled burning in eucalypt forests” in 1962. Leaflet No. 80 proved a turning point for forest and fire managers across Australia. It also became evident thatContinue reading “Fire Management – 101. Aerial Ignition.”

One lasting consequence of the 1939 Stretton Royal Commission was a revision of the Forest Act in 1939 which  handed the Forests Commission the additional responsibility for bushfire protection on all public land including State forests, National Parks and unoccupied Crown Lands, plus a buffer extending one mile beyond their margins onto private land. (A.K.A.Continue reading “Fire Management – 101. Fire Protected Area (FPA).”

Backburning to build or thicken a control line from a strategic fuel break, road, ridgeline or 4WD track is a common and effective dry firefighting technique, particularly in remote and rugged country. But indirect attack using backburning increases overall fire size and therefore fire perimeter. It also introduces more fire into the landscape, often underContinue reading “Fire Management – 101. Backburning.”

Victorian foresters were initially trained in European traditions and believed fire had no place in the forest. Like many early settlers, colonial foresters only saw bushfire as a threat, particularly to young regrowth, and sought to eliminate it altogether. A fire exclusion policy, though well-intentioned, shaped forest management for decades with mixed results. Early ForestsContinue reading “Fire Management – 101. Fire / Fuel Breaks.”

Helicopters capitalise on the three main advantages of aircraft… speed, access and observation… The RAAF’s first helicopter, a Sikorsky S-51 Dragonfly (A80-1), was test flown at Laverton Air Base on 9 October 1947. In May 1949, in an Australian first, the Forests Commission winched firefighters from the hovering Dragonfly. The Sikorsky proved very versatile andContinue reading “Fire Management – 101. Helicopters.”

The first trials using aircraft to attack bushfires in Australia were conducted in Victoria in 1937-38 when the Forests Commission carried out tests dropping brine solution (bitterns) in cartons. The US Forest Service began trials around the same time and the two organisations collaborated closely over the subsequent decades. Further trials were conducted after theContinue reading “Fire Management – 101. Firebombing.”

Fast and aggressive First Attack… has always been the mantra drummed into trainee forest firefighters. The primary aim is to keep bushfires small, and less than 5 ha in size within the first 24-hour period following detection. This gives the best chance of quick control. But the main problem for firefighters on the ground isn’tContinue reading “Fire Management – 101. First Attack Dozers (FAD).”

“Fires always look worse at night, and fires always look worse from a distance” – Alan McArthur, c 1961. Firstly, it is important to understand that bushfire perimeter, rather than bushfire area, is the main control problem for forest firefighters on the ground. A conundrum rapidly compounded by spot fires. In extreme cases, the perimeterContinue reading “Fire Management – 101. Introduction to Fire Suppression.”

The landscape features that distinguish Gippsland, and which strongly influence the weather, and therefore the bushfire behaviour are: Far east Gippsland is one of the few places in mainland Australia where the forests extend unbroken from the mountains to the sea. Eastern Victoria, and Gippsland in particular, sits directly within the Australian bushfire flume. TheContinue reading “Fire Management – 101.The Gippsland Zig–Zag.”

Internationally, southern Australia and particularly the State of Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia and the island State of Tasmania, is commonly regarded as one of the three most landscapes on Earth prone to damaging bushfires. The other two are southern California and the Mediterranean coast. Victorians live entirely within what the international renown fireContinue reading “Fire Management – 101.Bushfire Flume.”

Bushfire behaviour is influenced by many factors including forest type, fuel quantity, fuel arrangement, fuel dryness, drought index, temperature, Relative Humidity (RH), topography, atmospheric stability, aspect and even slope. Wind has a dominant effect on the Rate of Spread (ROS), and also bushfire size, shape and direction. Measuring Fuel Hazard. Fuel quantity (tonnes/ha) affects fireContinue reading “Fire Management – 101.Understanding Fuel.”